you can go to my blog Provocative Church to get the link for the article:

http://www.provocativechurch.com/2008/03/is-oprah-next-billy-graham.html

I have been following this conversation, as my husband’s beliefs are pretty similar to some of yours. So I thank you for providing all of us who are reading this with the insight you’ve given. It truly is helpful. I have a few questions, asked with the utmost sincerity and respect, about what you’ve written…

You say: My father is a Christian man, but he lives less like Christ than I do. He is constantly commenting on infidelity and cursing the people around him who upset him. This is not being ?Christ-Like? which is what a Christian should be!

I ask: What, exactly, SHOULD a Christian be like? Christ himself, after all, went around condemning behaviors while still loving the person. I don’t know the manner in which your father is speaking, so I can’t say whether his actions are Christ-like, but too many people have this idea that Christians should be nice, sweet, ooey-gooey pushovers who have no spine. That’s not who my God calls me to be. I don’t think we should be crass and mean, but I do think that we are meant to stand up to the things in this world that aren’t of God. That’s exactly what Jesus did. The Bible even gives us a framework for confronting these behaviors! In your eyes, what does being “Christ-like” entail?

You say: See, I believe that Christ?s message was not ?believe in me? but ?believe like me?.

I ask: How do you refute John 14:6, “Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” This very clearly says that without Christ, faith is nothing.

You say: Christ understood that we are not separate from God. We and God are one! There is no separation!

I ask: Again how do you respond to this, from John 14, Jesus says, “7If you really knew me, you would know[b] my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” 8Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” 9Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.”

This passage says nothing about all of the universe being one with God. Instead, Jesus is one with God.

You say: The belief that we cannot communicate with God except through some channel such as Christ or Mohamed or Krishna or whoever is ludicrous.

My response: We absolutely can communicate with God! Anyone, anytime, anywhere can communicate with God as long as they walk this earth, with no intermediaries necessary. But without the saving grace of Christ, people will spend an eternity separated from Him.

You say: Our soul is God which resides within us!

I ask: So how do you classify the Holy Spirit? I would argue that what you are calling the “soul” is actually the Spirit, which guides us.

I agree with you about the concept of “religion.” To a point. There are so many negative connotations that go along with the word religion, that have very little to do with the way I experience God and worship Him. People get stuck in rituals, performing the acts without really understanding why or putting any thought into them. Christianity is about living a full, joyful life to God’s glory. That doesn’t mean Christians are perfect. Far from it. We all mess up. We all do bonehead things. We all have our stumbling blocks. But those who believe in Christ are called to face life with joy, no matter the circumstances.

Like Mark has said above, I don’t presume that any of these points will change your mind about your beliefs. None of us can do that. But I am very interested to read your responses, and I thank you, again, for being willing to answer our questions so openly and honestly.

Regards,
–Tammy

“Either Jesus was who he said he was or he?s not. If he is, we have no other place to go. If he?s not, we are pursuing a pointless faith. So the ultimate question for you, is do you believe Jesus is who he said he was, or do you believe something else?”

First, this question implies that the Bible is the truth. Which I have a hard time believing since it has been rewritten and translated several times by many “authorities” throughout history.
Was Christ a great man? Absolutely! But so was Buddha. Was Christ the saviour of all mankind? I have a hard time believing this one. Remember I was “born-again” and come from a deeply religious family deeply rooted in “the” faith. My father and uncle are both pastors and I can tell you that this argument is not a new one to me. I will admit that I am not the best at making my case as I am not that great with words but what I know to be MY truth is real to me! I have searched the depths of my soul and considered all possibilities and have come to the conclusion that every man has his own truth. You believe that there is only one way. Life experience tells me that there are many ways! My father is a Christian man, but he lives less like Christ than I do. He is constantly commenting on infidelity and cursing the people around him who upset him. This is not being “Christ-Like” which is what a Christian should be! I have many “Christian friends who support the war in Iraq but seem to forget that they have a commandment of “Thou shalt not kill”. This doesn’t mean you can kill if it suits your country’s agenda, it means do not kill another human being!
See, I believe that Christ’s message was not “believe in me” but “believe like me”.
Christ understood that we are not separate from God. We and God are one! There is no separation! It is the belief that we are separate which causes so much pain and heartache. When you live with the understanding that you and the rest of the universe are working in one accord with God, there is a peace and strength which rises up inside of you allowing you to truly do God’s work. The belief that we cannot communicate with God except through some channel such as Christ or Mohamed or Krishna or whoever is ludicrous. I know that you and God are very close, for you would not be in the ministry if you weren’t. You have simply labeled God as Christ. Just as Muslims label God as Mohamed. But we all know that God exists and that we have a soul.
Our soul is God which resides within us!
We are spiritual beings! Man has known this since the dawn of time, and in an effort to explain this we have come up with theories, philosophies, and theologies in an attempt to explain it and structure it. The “problem” I have with organized religions is that they bind and limit what true spirituality is. That is to say, most organized religion was established to control the masses, and it works. However many people are waking up and beginning to realize that their old religions aren’t making sense anymore. This was what happened to me. As I began to question the “logic” behind my faith, I realized that there were too many “holes” in what the scripture was telling me. This was when (to my reluctance) I began to search for answers elsewhere. My soul knew that there was more to “all of this” but my mind had been indoctrinated with a certain belief, thus when I came into a new belief or paradigm my mind recoiled as my soul rejoiced. This was when I learned that my highest thought was not the one in my mind but the one in my soul. Which was God’s thought. I know this sounds crazy to you, as it did to me when I discovered it, but it is my truth.
So in short, NO I do not believe what is written about what Christ said. It has been misinterpreted through the years to suit the organizers of the Christian faith. Just as many other portions of the Bible and other “Holy” books have. There is truth and salvation to be found in those books but not in the religions themselves. God does not have a religion! He/She simply is!

Namaste! -Hastings

I think of the perfect garden God offered us in Eden for us to enjoy with him. Why he created anything, we don’t know. All I know is that we were made in His image, still prone to wanting to create and enjoy our creations.

We also create animate and inanimate objects. We don’t “need” them, but we do it anyway. We bring children in the world, the tainted world, a harmful world. Why?

I think because we believe there is joy and hope to offer that will, that can, win out and make it worth it, no matter what faces us. The joy is greater than the pain.

I would disagree with Hasting. God didn’t leave us in a perfect, balanced world. There is evidence of balance, for God is a God of order, and he created in that way. But, because of man’s choice to sin, that first sin in the garden of Eden, sin was introduced, death was introduced into the world. Until that time, man was meant to live forever in the intimacy of fellowship with God. The point from the beginning is that we need rescue. We can’t do it on our own. If we could, we would be God. And we are not.

He made us. He loves us. He saves us. We are meant to be his forgiven bride, saved by his work, with Him as God. We are not God. He lives in us, but we are not Him. We have his spirit given to us, to live in us and instruct us after salvation, but we cannot be God. We will still fail.

We are just forgiven.

I read a blog yesterday of a man who is still bitter that he grew up in a church where a man preached Christ and then failed miserably in his business and personal life and witness. He said, “if there is a narrow way and a wide path and you can’t even stay on it, why bother the rest of us? I’m happy here.”

My heart aches. Mainly because I know that as much as I want to have a life that testifies to the work of God in my life, I will fail to give him all the glory he deserves. I am not God. I am not the perfect Jesus. I have every intention to try, but I cannot be. Only he, the perfect, points to himself. Only Jesus.

That is why, if you miss Jesus, you miss “the fix” for the sin that raveges us and the world. Jesus was given because there was sin introduced into the world, and we all need it gone to have right relationship with God again. The punishment for sin is death. For many years, God allowed bulls, and sheep and goats to cover this price, just as a temporary fix. In the garden of Eden, death was the price of sin. It still is today.

And we will all die that physical death as a result of sin. But, because Christ paid the price for us, our spirit has the promise of eternal life with God.

Oh, yes, next come questions: what about babies and the incapacitated and those who lived before Christ…and there are discussions and verses that help give us peace about those hard to answer questions. But, the main question for now is: what about you?

You CAN decide. He died for your sin. God wanted your frienship that much. He who knew no sin, suddenly took on the sin of the world and died an undeserving death…for you. And for me. And he overcame death and the grave, rising three days later, so that we would not have to face that hell. We don’t have to suffer the punishment we deserved because he took it all for us. He walked through the gates of hell for you.

It would be easy enough to not believe in Satan as Hastings suggests, if I didn’t read how he has tried to manipulate men thorugh the ages, starting in the garden of Eden, and how he uses the same tricks today to try to keep us from Christ, mainly because angels do not have the option of salvation. Once they turned, it was done. They are servants, they are either completely obedient to the Father, or they have turned from Him, the scriptures tell us. It all adds up.

He has already lost the war…it was won at the cross. All Satan has left is to win as many battles as he can. He is deluded into thinking he can still win. All he can do is provide himself more company in hell where deception and trickery reigns.

I see a dark sky and say, “Look, the sunlight is coming”, another sees it and say, “it is still dark”. The main point of Scripture is not whether it is day or dark, or whether the angel sat on the stone or it was already rolled away. The line consistent throughout all of scripture is, a lamb would come, a perfect Lamb to take away the sins of the world for all who would believe on Him. And he did. All the prophecies prophecied for thousands of years have come true. They have come to pass. Dreams, visions, direct words given through men by vague sounding prophecies (at the time)…all became clear when Jesus came. All of Scripture points to the coming of Christ and his glory in us. He restores.

There have walked many great men on the earth, but none who take away the sins of the world and restore our relationship to God and give us back the life we lost. We lost it because we needed to know He is God, and we are not. We are just the work of His hand. The sheep of his pasture. Created. We create, but we are not The Creator.

Well, I am certainly not eloquent and cannot begin to write as well as the two of you, but I just wanted to lend some closing thoughts I had on my heart as I plodded through your conversational journey. Blessings to you.

I think of the perfect garden God offered us in Eden for us to enjoy with him. Why he created anything, we don’t know. All I know is that we were made in His image, still prone to wanting to create and enjoy our creations.

We also create animate and inanimate objects. We don’t “need” them, but we do it anyway. We bring children in the world, the tainted world, a harmful world. Why?

I think because we believe there is joy and hope to offer that will, that can, win out and make it worth it, no matter what faces us. The joy is greater than the pain.

I would disagree with Hasting. God didn’t leave us in a perfect, balanced world. There is evidence of balance, for God is a God of order, and he created in that way. But, because of man’s choice to sin, that first sin in the garden of Eden, sin was introduced, death was introduced into the world. Until that time, man was meant to live forever in the intimacy of fellowship with God. The point from the beginning is that we need rescue. We can’t do it on our own. If we could, we would be God. And we are not.

He made us. He loves us. He saves us. We are meant to be his forgiven bride, saved by his work, with Him as God. We are not God. He lives in us, but we are not Him. We have his spirit given to us, to live in us and instruct us after salvation, but we cannot be God. We will still fail.

We are just forgiven.

I read a blog yesterday of a man who is still bitter that he grew up in a church where a man preached Christ and then failed miserably in his business and personal life and witness. He said, “if there is a narrow way and a wide path and you can’t even stay on it, why bother the rest of us? I’m happy here.”

My heart aches. Mainly because I know that as much as I want to have a life that testifies to the work of God in my life, I will fail to give him all the glory he deserves. I am not God. I am not the perfect Jesus. I have every intention to try, but I cannot be. Only he, the perfect, points to himself. Only Jesus.

That is why, if you miss Jesus, you miss “the fix” for the sin that raveges us and the world. Jesus was given because there was sin introduced into the world, and we all need it gone to have right relationship with God again. The punishment for sin is death. For many years, God allowed bulls, and sheep and goats to cover this price, just as a temporary fix. In the garden of Eden, death was the price of sin. It still is today.

And we will all die that physical death as a result of sin. But, because Christ paid the price for us, our spirit has the promise of eternal life with God.

Oh, yes, next come questions: what about babies and the incapacitated and those who lived before Christ…and there are discussions and verses that help give us peace about those hard to answer questions. But, the main question for now is: what about you?

You CAN decide. He died for your sin. God wanted your frienship that much. He who knew no sin, suddenly took on the sin of the world and died an undeserving death…for you. And for me. And he overcame death and the grave, rising three days later, so that we would not have to face that hell. We don’t have to suffer the punishment we deserved because he took it all for us. He walked through the gates of hell for you.

It would be easy enough to not believe in Satan as Hastings suggests, if I didn’t read how he has tried to manipulate men thorugh the ages, starting in the garden of Eden, and how he uses the same tricks today to try to keep us from Christ, mainly because angels do not have the option of salvation. Once they turned, it was done. They are servants, they are either completely obedient to the Father, or they have turned from Him, the scriptures tell us. It all adds up.

He has already lost the war…it was won at the cross. All Satan has left is to win as many battles as he can. He is deluded into thinking he can still win. All he can do is provide himself more company in hell where deception and trickery reigns.

I see a dark sky and say, “Look, the sunlight is coming”, another sees it and say, “it is still dark”. The main point of Scripture is not whether it is day or dark, or whether the angel sat on the stone or it was already rolled away. The line consistent throughout all of scripture is, a lamb would come, a perfect Lamb to take away the sins of the world for all who would believe on Him. And he did. All the prophecies prophecied for thousands of years have come true. They have come to pass. Dreams, visions, direct words given through men by vague sounding prophecies (at the time)…all became clear when Jesus came. All of Scripture points to the coming of Christ and his glory in us. He restores.

There have walked many great men on the earth, but none who take away the sins of the world and restore our relationship to God and give us back the life we lost. We lost it because we needed to know He is God, and we are not. We are just the work of His hand. The sheep of his pasture. Created. We create, but we are not The Creator.

Well, I am certainly not eloquent and cannot begin to write as well as the two of you, but I just wanted to lend some closing thoughts I had on my heart as I plodded through your conversational journey. Blessings to you.

I think of the perfect garden God offered us in Eden for us to enjoy with him. Why he created anything, we don’t know. All I know is that we were made in His image, still prone to wanting to create and enjoy our creations.

We also create animate and inanimate objects. We don’t “need” them, but we do it anyway. We bring children in the world, the tainted world, a harmful world. Why?

I think because we believe there is joy and hope to offer that will, that can, win out and make it worth it, no matter what faces us. The joy is greater than the pain.

I would disagree with Hasting. God didn’t leave us in a perfect, balanced world. There is evidence of balance, for God is a God of order, and he created in that way. But, because of man’s choice to sin, that first sin in the garden of Eden, sin was introduced, death was introduced into the world. Until that time, man was meant to live forever in the intimacy of fellowship with God. The point from the beginning is that we need rescue. We can’t do it on our own. If we could, we would be God. And we are not.

He made us. He loves us. He saves us. We are meant to be his forgiven bride, saved by his work, with Him as God. We are not God. He lives in us, but we are not Him. We have his spirit given to us, to live in us and instruct us after salvation, but we cannot be God. We will still fail.

We are just forgiven.

I read a blog yesterday of a man who is still bitter that he grew up in a church where a man preached Christ and then failed miserably in his business and personal life and witness. He said, “if there is a narrow way and a wide path and you can’t even stay on it, why bother the rest of us? I’m happy here.”

My heart aches. Mainly because I know that as much as I want to have a life that testifies to the work of God in my life, I will fail to give him all the glory he deserves. I am not God. I am not the perfect Jesus. I have every intention to try, but I cannot be. Only he, the perfect, points to himself. Only Jesus.

That is why, if you miss Jesus, you miss “the fix” for the sin that raveges us and the world. Jesus was given because there was sin introduced into the world, and we all need it gone to have right relationship with God again. The punishment for sin is death. For many years, God allowed bulls, and sheep and goats to cover this price, just as a temporary fix. In the garden of Eden, death was the price of sin. It still is today.

And we will all die that physical death as a result of sin. But, because Christ paid the price for us, our spirit has the promise of eternal life with God.

Oh, yes, next come questions: what about babies and the incapacitated and those who lived before Christ…and there are discussions and verses that help give us peace about those hard to answer questions. But, the main question for now is: what about you?

You CAN decide. He died for your sin. God wanted your frienship that much. He who knew no sin, suddenly took on the sin of the world and died an undeserving death…for you. And for me. And he overcame death and the grave, rising three days later, so that we would not have to face that hell. We don’t have to suffer the punishment we deserved because he took it all for us. He walked through the gates of hell for you.

It would be easy enough to not believe in Satan as Hastings suggests, if I didn’t read how he has tried to manipulate men thorugh the ages, starting in the garden of Eden, and how he uses the same tricks today to try to keep us from Christ, mainly because angels do not have the option of salvation. Once they turned, it was done. They are servants, they are either completely obedient to the Father, or they have turned from Him, the scriptures tell us. It all adds up.

He has already lost the war…it was won at the cross. All Satan has left is to win as many battles as he can. He is deluded into thinking he can still win. All he can do is provide himself more company in hell where deception and trickery reigns.

I see a dark sky and say, “Look, the sunlight is coming”, another sees it and say, “it is still dark”. The main point of Scripture is not whether it is day or dark, or whether the angel sat on the stone or it was already rolled away. The line consistent throughout all of scripture is, a lamb would come, a perfect Lamb to take away the sins of the world for all who would believe on Him. And he did. All the prophecies prophecied for thousands of years have come true. They have come to pass. Dreams, visions, direct words given through men by vague sounding prophecies (at the time)…all became clear when Jesus came. All of Scripture points to the coming of Christ and his glory in us. He restores.

There have walked many great men on the earth, but none who take away the sins of the world and restore our relationship to God and give us back the life we lost. We lost it because we needed to know He is God, and we are not. We are just the work of His hand. The sheep of his pasture. Created. We create, but we are not The Creator.

Well, I am certainly not eloquent and cannot begin to write as well as the two of you, but I just wanted to lend some closing thoughts I had on my heart as I plodded through your conversational journey. Blessings to you.

I think of the perfect garden God offered us in Eden for us to enjoy with him. Why he created anything, we don’t know. All I know is that we were made in His image, still prone to wanting to create and enjoy our creations.

We also create animate and inanimate objects. We don’t “need” them, but we do it anyway. We bring children in the world, the tainted world, a harmful world. Why?

I think because we believe there is joy and hope to offer that will, that can, win out and make it worth it, no matter what faces us. The joy is greater than the pain.

I would disagree with Hasting. God didn’t leave us in a perfect, balanced world. There is evidence of balance, for God is a God of order, and he created in that way. But, because of man’s choice to sin, that first sin in the garden of Eden, sin was introduced, death was introduced into the world. Until that time, man was meant to live forever in the intimacy of fellowship with God. The point from the beginning is that we need rescue. We can’t do it on our own. If we could, we would be God. And we are not.

He made us. He loves us. He saves us. We are meant to be his forgiven bride, saved by his work, with Him as God. We are not God. He lives in us, but we are not Him. We have his spirit given to us, to live in us and instruct us after salvation, but we cannot be God. We will still fail.

We are just forgiven.

I read a blog yesterday of a man who is still bitter that he grew up in a church where a man preached Christ and then failed miserably in his business and personal life and witness. He said, “if there is a narrow way and a wide path and you can’t even stay on it, why bother the rest of us? I’m happy here.”

My heart aches. Mainly because I know that as much as I want to have a life that testifies to the work of God in my life, I will fail to give him all the glory he deserves. I am not God. I am not the perfect Jesus. I have every intention to try, but I cannot be. Only he, the perfect, points to himself. Only Jesus.

That is why, if you miss Jesus, you miss “the fix” for the sin that raveges us and the world. Jesus was given because there was sin introduced into the world, and we all need it gone to have right relationship with God again. The punishment for sin is death. For many years, God allowed bulls, and sheep and goats to cover this price, just as a temporary fix. In the garden of Eden, death was the price of sin. It still is today.

And we will all die that physical death as a result of sin. But, because Christ paid the price for us, our spirit has the promise of eternal life with God.

Oh, yes, next come questions: what about babies and the incapacitated and those who lived before Christ…and there are discussions and verses that help give us peace about those hard to answer questions. But, the main question for now is: what about you?

You CAN decide. He died for your sin. God wanted your frienship that much. He who knew no sin, suddenly took on the sin of the world and died an undeserving death…for you. And for me. And he overcame death and the grave, rising three days later, so that we would not have to face that hell. We don’t have to suffer the punishment we deserved because he took it all for us. He walked through the gates of hell for you.

It would be easy enough to not believe in Satan as Hastings suggests, if I didn’t read how he has tried to manipulate men thorugh the ages, starting in the garden of Eden, and how he uses the same tricks today to try to keep us from Christ, mainly because angels do not have the option of salvation. Once they turned, it was done. They are servants, they are either completely obedient to the Father, or they have turned from Him, the scriptures tell us. It all adds up.

He has already lost the war…it was won at the cross. All Satan has left is to win as many battles as he can. He is deluded into thinking he can still win. All he can do is provide himself more company in hell where deception and trickery reigns.

I see a dark sky and say, “Look, the sunlight is coming”, another sees it and say, “it is still dark”. The main point of Scripture is not whether it is day or dark, or whether the angel sat on the stone or it was already rolled away. The line consistent throughout all of scripture is, a lamb would come, a perfect Lamb to take away the sins of the world for all who would believe on Him. And he did. All the prophecies prophecied for thousands of years have come true. They have come to pass. Dreams, visions, direct words given through men by vague sounding prophecies (at the time)…all became clear when Jesus came. All of Scripture points to the coming of Christ and his glory in us. He restores.

There have walked many great men on the earth, but none who take away the sins of the world and restore our relationship to God and give us back the life we lost. We lost it because we needed to know He is God, and we are not. We are just the work of His hand. The sheep of his pasture. Created. We create, but we are not The Creator.

Well, I am certainly not eloquent and cannot begin to write as well as the two of you, but I just wanted to lend some closing thoughts I had on my heart as I plodded through your conversational journey. Blessings to you.