On "Christians" own terms...

[Mel Brennan]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but maybe your faith is wholly misplaced.

I don't relate to Christ the way that most who claim to be Christian do, precisely because of the following, which I hold to ostensible Christians on their own terms of belief...

I argue this:

(1) That those who call themselves Christians today have as one of their central pillars of belief that Jesus Christ is God.

(2) That those who call themselves Christians today have the various translations of the Bible as their only source material quoting Christ (a state of matters - differing translations - that does not affect my argument much at all).

(3) That within that source Christ makes clear that Loving God, and loving your neighbor as yourself are the Two Greatest Commandments.

-----(3a) and that establishing "Greatest Commandments" by definition creates a hierarchy of importance and focus, as other Commands are, by definition, NOT as "Great."

(4) That Christ affirms that hierarchy by submitting "on these two Commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

-----(4a) That "the law" is consistently defined as Scripture, and that "the prophets" is consistently defined as the pronouncements of prophecy by various folks in the Bible. "...the prophets" is also sometimes defined as the persons designated prophets themselves throughout the Bible, but in either case Christ made ENGAGING other Scripture and notions of prophecy/any Prophets CONTINGENT upon FIRST executing the Commands to Love.

(5) That Christ leaves no loophole of exclusion from the Commands to love, and in fact makes getting eternal life contingent NOT ON SOME ABSTRACT LEVEL OF FAITH IN THE STORY SURROUNDING HIS EXISTANCE, BUT, RATHER, CONTINGENT UPON THE CONCRETE EXECUTION OF THE GREATEST COMMANDS. Christ also ties our actions, now wholly bound up in lovingkindess behavour, to nonviolent ways of being in the world.

-----(5a) In the discussion just preceding the parable of the Good Samaritan, Christ is asked by a lawyer - the ultimate "loophole finders," right? - this question: "How do I get eternal life?" Christ responds NOT with the Apostle's Creed, or John 3:16 (which we'll get to later), but with this: "What does it say in the law?" The lawyer submits "Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself." Christ says "DO THIS, and ye shall live," which right then and right there makes eternal life contingent upon executing the Greatest Commands, which, as I argue above, definitively SUBORDINATE all other Scripture and all other Prophetic notions (of Rapture, Revelation, Second Coming, etc) TO the execution of those Commands.

-----(5b) The lawyer, again "loophole searching," asks further, "Who is my neighbor?" IOW, what tools might I use to differentiate between those you want me to love as myself, and those I can hate and/or marginalise and/or kill? Christ responds with the parable of the Good Samaritan, at the end of which Christ asks the lawyher, "Who was neighbor to the man?" THe lawyer, understanding the parable, answers, "The one who showed mercy to him." CHrist responds, "Go and do likewise." SO now, we UNDERSTAND that "neighbor" is ANYONE for whom we can exhibit mercy. That's a heavy mandate, but is part and parcel of the Greatest Command from the man Christians call God, the execution of which Christ - God - ties directly to getting eternal life.

-----(5c) To both completely close any loopholes of interpretation, AND to cement the total and complete refutation of the fundamentalist notion of "scriptural equivocation," the assertion that "every word in the Bible is as Commanding and instructive and has as much primacy as every other word (a notion refuted on its face by the very existence of "Greatest Commands," undoubtedly rebuked by HINGING all other law and prophecy UPON such Commands, and further refuted in the following example)," I offer Christ's word in the Sermon on the Mount: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you..." So now, the Greatest Commands are "Love God/Love anyone for whom you can exhibit mercy," and Christ also, in a Sermon where he DIRECTLY ADDRESSES our contrasting notions of "neighbor" and "enemy," demand that we love our enemies. There's noone left to NOT love.

----- (5d) For those looking for the "tough love" loophole out of SEEING "love" as nonviolent (allowing for perverse interpretations of Christ such as "WE show our love for some Iraqis by killing other Iraqis," or "Love sometimes means doing harm in order to do 'good'), I offer, again, Christ at the Sermon on the Mount: ""You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I tell you not to resist an evil person [AGAIN, refutation of 'scriptural equivocation.' Just because you can find it somewhere else in the 'law,' Christ submits here, doesn't mean that it holds as much weight as what I'm telling you.']. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away." Nonviolence as the way of being in the world. So NOW we have Greatest Commands as "Love God/Love anyone for whom you can exhibit mercy," and Christ also, in a Sermon where he DIRECTLY ADDRESSES our contrasting notions of "neighbor" and "enemy," demanding that we love our enemies, and everyone lese, NONVIOLENTLY.

(6) Given all of the above, might John 3:16, might Christ's very life and death, be seen utterly differently? I think so.

-----(6a) If someone asks you if you believe in MLK, or your father, or me, you don't respond with considerations as to whether or not they have actually manifested as you understand them in the historical or current record or reality, respectively. You are far more likely to address such a question with either clarification or with something along the lines of "You mean, do I believe in what MLK stood for?" Apply this to a Christ who, in the book Christians claim is the Word of God, God himself, in the above conversation with the lawyer, submits that the way to eternal life is through the EXECUTION of the Commands to Love, the broad scope of which we've also established. KNOWING now that Christ is QUOTED as submitting that eternal life comes from "doing Love," - and "doing mercy," and "doing nonviolence" - how about this as a new (old?) take on John 3:16? The chapter and verse submits this: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Now that you KNOW, from the above, that eternal life is also tied to "doing Love," doesn't this verse suffer from a popular misinterpretation? Isn't "believeth in him" NOT "rest replete in some internal belief dialogue about the litany of "facts" surrounding the life and the death," but rather "believe in what he Commanded so completely that "doing Love," the thing that will get you eternal life, is so part and parcel of your existence as to be inseparable?" Believe in what he said, believe what he said to be true, not that he suffered under Pilate and was born of a Virgin? We'll get to the inescapable thinking that emerges even if you refute this and stand fast for the Creed-ist take, the story surrounding the birth and death, later, but I wanted to consider this as well.

-----(6b) if the above as I've asserted it is the case, maybe the Fundamental Tenets of what it means to be a "Christian" are totally misplaced. Maybe it's not about believing in any story about CHrist's life, but, CRUCIALLY, about believing in the Commands to Love the Numinous and love each other that is transformative and related to "eternal life." Maybe 2.1 billion CHristians willign to do what it takes to stand fast for everyone for whom they can exhibit mercy in the Lovign Mode they've been COmmanded to undertake produces a fundamentally different world than the one we have now, where Christ s used as a shield for, given the above, PATENTLY Anti-Christ practices, not dissimilar from "just war" doctrine.

Maybe bering a Christian has to do with being centered on Lovign Action, everyday, and nothing at all to do with a hideaway personal belief dialogue about whether, for examplke, Mary was a Virgin or not. Maybe being a Christian is about being out there, in the midst of unloving, unmerciful, violent acts around the world and saying that I've a DUTY to be here because I love ALL the parties in this conflict, and I stand fast in lvoe for everyone who is suffering, regardless of color, creed, or anything else. Maybe the Christian Peace Teams, the Iraqi Action Quakers, the nuns cutting through fences and laying body and blood on American missiles...maybe they've all got it right, and others claiming CHrist but NOT ACTING have got it totally, ETERNALLY wrong.

-----(6c) Looking now at a Christ who lived lovingly and mercifully and nonviolently toward everyone, taught love and mercy and nonviolence toward everyone, and who died calling for love and mercy, nonviolently, for everyone, might it be that Christ KNEW how HARD - it is far more courageous to stand in nonviolence and love in the midst of a violent hateful situation than it will EVER be to go in guns blazing, which itself takes a kind of courage that only pales in terms of the former - it woudl be to live this life, and set his life and death as example to follow? Might "the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world" do so not just through some symbolic transmutation that we cannot explain, but, rather, through the concrete establishment of a permanently loving, merciful and nonviolent way of being in the world?

(7) What does it mean that no Creed, and no Sermon, places the Greatest Commands to Love with Mercy and Nonviolence, on the pedastal upon which NOT ACTING BUT SIMPLY BELIVEING - and having everything else "interpreted" for you - rests? Who has the power in that scenario? Who is patently IGNORING the clear tie between "doing Love" and eternal life in such a scenario?

(8) What type of world ensues when 2.1 billion Christians feel it encumbent upon themselves to simply move through the world with loving acts, nonviolently, every single day? Why is what Christ gave primacy simply not affirmed as the central tenets from which all else MUST spring, as Christ made clear? Might it be that permanent conceptions of Love, Mercy and Nonviolence RUN COUNTER TO THE NEEDS AND DEMANDS OF THOSE IN POWER (be they the political class, "religious" class or a "nobility")? What HAPPENS when Love, mercy and nonviolence run rampant? How do wars get fought? How does injustice prevail? How can we "capitalise" in that environment? How is it that Christianity today is so perfectly tied to war, violence, and economic "isms" of any kind? Isn't that an additional indicator of its failure as currenty conceived, that we might be institutionally missing a piece of the puzzle? Might that piece be the biggest piece of all?

(9) If Christ is God, and God Commands you to Love, to exhibit Mercy for everyone you come across (does that mean "mentally come across" as well? Everyone about whom you are even AWARE?), to Love evne those you seeas your enemies, and to do all of that in nonviolence, AND if God says that "You can't even TALK about other Scripture or various Prophecies without getting this done; ALL other law and prophets HANG upon doing these Commands," AND ties DOING those Commands to ETERNAL LIFE, how is that NOT perfectly, unmissably central to every Christian faith?
----

I'd like any of the Fervent to wrestle with the above.

On your own terms, it seems to me, Christ is missing from your conception of Christ.

Were I to see Christ as emerging solely from the Bible as historical record - which I don't - the above would FORCE me to reconcieve of Christ outside the narrow frames offered. I'm interested in what, exactly, happens in your Christ-experience that allows you to make anything else central, and/or how the above is incorrect.

[DoctorD]

One of the most thought-provoking sermons I ever heard on the "Good Samaritan" story asked the question whether someone should have stopped the merchant before he went down that road. Obviously the actions of the Samaritan were exemplary, especially since it was the equivalent of a black man saving a hood-wearing KKK member. But did it not behoove the innkeeper to warn the merchant he would be beaten, robbed, and probably killed if he traveled that road? Wouldn't that have been more "neighborly"?

[YankHibee]

Read much Yoder?

[Mel Brennan]

Read much Yoder?


No. Just did a robust search though, and maybe I ought to. Thanks for that.

[schafer]

Maybe bering a Christian has to do with being centered on Lovign Action, everyday, and nothing at all to do with a hideaway personal belief dialogue about whether, for examplke, Mary was a Virgin or not. Maybe being a Christian is about being out there, in the midst of unloving, unmerciful, violent acts around the world and saying that I've a DUTY to be here because I love ALL the parties in this conflict, and I stand fast in lvoe for everyone who is suffering, regardless of color, creed, or anything else. Maybe the Christian Peace Teams, the Iraqi Action Quakers, the nuns cutting through fences and laying body and blood on American missiles...maybe they've all got it right, and others claiming CHrist but NOT ACTING have got it totally, ETERNALLY wrong.



If I understand you correctly, what you are saying is that acting out the commands of Christ is as/more important than believing Christ existed? If that is indeed what you are saying, then I agree with you. I consider myself a Christian, and the way I interpret and have been taught the Bible is the way you said in the above paragraph. There is a verse in James, I believe, that summarizes what you have said. The verse says "Faith without good deeds is dead." This basically means that all that call themselves Christians yet do not act out or attempt to act out the message of Christ (which I interpret to be nonviolence, love, compassion, kindness in ALL situations) are misrepresenting themselves and also the Christian faith. Obviously it is impossible to live out these characteristics in every situation, but I personally believe that attempting to live these out is fundamental to the Christian faith.

There are some who disagree with that outlook, and interpret John 3:16 100% literally. However, if you compare it with the verse in James, and consider that faith and belief are interchangeable, then it is impossible to fully believe in Jesus without living out His message.

If one was to look at the book of Acts, specifically Chapter 2, which profiles the early Christian church, then you would see what the Christian community was/is supposed to look like.


I fully believe that Christ intended his followers to live out his commands, but unfortunately many have lost sight of that and at the same time tainted others' view of Christianity, which at its heart contains a message of love, equality, kindness, etc, and a call to live the message out. I hope this has answered (to some degree) your question.

[christopher d]

*snipped first post*

Mel, I hate to break this to you, but your post sounded like any of a number of sermons I've heard in my life... message about works and words included.

[Mel Brennan]

Mel, I hate to break this to you, but your post sounded like any of a number of sermons I've heard in my life... message about works and words included.


That the Greatest Commands hold primacy in Christian life? That eternal life is TIED to EXECUTION of the Greatest Commands. That one cannot even talk about other Scripture and notions of Rapture, Revelation, and Second COming with a tradition of being about those Commands in the world? That it is impossible to be in right relationship with Christ, regardless of belief (in the storyline/that Christ was Saviour), without doing the Commands?

You're not "breaking" anything to me; I've acknowledged in other threads that there are a few traditions that focus on this "doing Love" as being central and reflect in everything they do, in acknowledgement of such Commands (they are not found in the USA, for the most part). But are you arguing that because you've heard this type of thing "any number of times" in your life, it's common? That's quite simply not my experience at all, nor that of the people around me.

I've never - ever - heard it in my time listening to sermons in my adult life (I can't honestly lay claim to remembering every sermon I heard as I child, so I can't speak to that). Noone in my immediate family - including a prominent Lutheran minister - has ever heard a sermon where the Greatest Commands are given primacy over all the other Scripture and prophecy of the Bible, as Christ submits.

Hell, I waited a few Sundays after this subforum was established, just to employ the DirecTV to spend substnative time among the "reglious channels." I heard about the "false Christ" of Revelations, and how "our Christ" would come on a white horse with a sword, but the "false Christ" would come on a white horse with a bow; I heard about how "doomsday" was coming for politicians who affirmed a woman's right to control her own flesh; I heard about how the many were going to Hell, and the few to Heaven, and how the pastor "held no illusions" about his own flock, submitting "...most of you all are going to Hell."; I heard about how 1948 marked a place known in Revelations, and that because there was a contigous Israel, that THIS generation was the generation to see the Last Days...if we could defeat Iran; I heard Dr. Creflo Dollar and his "cutting-edge media ministry" offer up their new "Asia-PAcific" region for their online bookstore, and prayer for those in Asia not yet reached by Creflo and Taffi Dollar's "outreach"; I saw flag draped pulpits on Thomas Dexter Jakes' program as not he but some other pastor in his name promoted the "Woman Thou Art Loosed" annual women's conference...and some other stuff I can't exactly remember. Nothing on any daily or regular affirmation of the Greatest Commands...no review on how the effort at "doping Love" was going...nothing at all on who stood fast AGAINST those Commands, and how, if at all, that opposition was institutionalized, and/or how to recognize it.

I listened to the AM radio in my area - which, on Sundays, actually bleeds over onto stations like ESPN Radio at night - and heard mostly music, and, when there was preaching, mostly about that individualized, internal belief dialogue that you must successfully navigae in order to get in to Heaven. I've never once heard how eternal life is tied to anything other than belief in the litany of ostensible facts surrounding the storyline of Christ's life.

Hell, if you have any INTERNET links to any pastor's sermons that articulate what I've articulated, above, I'd sure be glad to read them. That the Greatest Commands are the way to eternal life? I've not read that at all.

I'm glad it's your common, regular personal experience though; that means that it is at least out there, being discussed. But I'd have to argue that your experience is exceedingly rare. Maybe I'm wrong; my own experience tells me...not really.

[Mel Brennan]

If I understand you correctly, what you are saying is that acting out the commands of Christ is as/more important than believing Christ existed? If that is indeed what you are saying, then I agree with you. I consider myself a Christian, and the way I interpret and have been taught the Bible is the way you said in the above paragraph. There is a verse in James, I believe, that summarizes what you have said. The verse says "Faith without good deeds is dead." This basically means that all that call themselves Christians yet do not act out or attempt to act out the message of Christ (which I interpret to be nonviolence, love, compassion, kindness in ALL situations) are misrepresenting themselves and also the Christian faith. Obviously it is impossible to live out these characteristics in every situation, but I personally believe that attempting to live these out is fundamental to the Christian faith.

There are some who disagree with that outlook, and interpret John 3:16 100% literally. However, if you compare it with the verse in James, and consider that faith and belief are interchangeable, then it is impossible to fully believe in Jesus without living out His message.

If one was to look at the book of Acts, specifically Chapter 2, which profiles the early Christian church, then you would see what the Christian community was/is supposed to look like.


I fully believe that Christ intended his followers to live out his commands, but unfortunately many have lost sight of that and at the same time tainted others' view of Christianity, which at its heart contains a message of love, equality, kindness, etc, and a call to live the message out. I hope this has answered (to some degree) your question.

It gets at exploring it, thank you. It's interesting how the experience of Christ is moved away from the observable and communal (like Christ's life, as we know it thorugh the Bible) - actions, and the doing of things in love and mercy where we are all beholden to one another - to the unobservable and isolatingly individual (unlike Christ's life) - thoughts/beliefs/faith, and the "intensity" and "consistency" of belief in the storyline, and nothing you do can get you into or keep you out of Heaven...it's all about the "totality" and "purity" of one's belief in the storyline, a internal belief dialogue at that ("I can't 'get' you into Heaven, I can only worry about myself, and the Bible says that only a few will go, so I've got to worry about ME")...

...one way of dealing with Christ produces the world we have today, where Christ can be prayed to for "victory over our enemies," and placed at the front of warmongering and vast wealth inequality and intolerance, and the other...well, with the other, would that be able to happen at all? Would the Christ-like either be able to manifest such behaviour, or stand fast in the face of it?

We are talking about two different ways of being in relationship with Christ altogether, and we don't really have to reach beyond the Greatest Commands, and how they, imv, HAVE to be engaged, given Christ's own language, to see that. Indeed, going outside first grounding oneself in and fully understanding those Commands to Love may be self-defeating, because to me, when Christ submits "upon these two Commandments hang all the law and the prophets," he saying that your very understanding of the rest of the "law" (Scripture), your very interpretation of the pronouncements of the "prophets" (prophecy) hinges upon you understanding the SCOPE of the Greatest Commands, which I've tried to articulate above (that "neighbor" certainly means anyone we come across for whom we can exhibit mercy, and might even mean anyone who comes into our awareness for whom merciful action can be taken, etc.).

For me, Christ left no way out of love (as you said, "...nonviolence, love, compassion, kindness in ALL situations..."). When you begin with the Greatest Commands, and understand their components as Jesus articulated them in the Bible, it becomes impossible to both do anything other than love, and claim a relationship with Christ.

For me, the problem is Paul, who gave folks a way to be in fundamental relationship with Christ, and a way to acheive eternal life, without having to LIVE the Greatest Commands. Just kick back, and "believe" enough, and that's ALL that matters. This is not borne out by the very language Christians claim is the word of their own God. I struggle with how little struggle there appear to be with that dichotomy. Because, again, if Paul is right, then "just wars" can take place, you can kill and maim in them, and that has nothing to do with eternal life (only your "belief" does). If you and I are right, then wars of ANY kind are anti-Christ behaviour, and move a person engaged in such acts AWAY from the "eternal life" that was TIED to "doing Love."

For Christians, there should be a fact about the matter; someone's right and wrong about this thing. For Christians, isn't the answer fundamental to their claims on life eternal?

[christopher d]

You're not "breaking" anything to me; I've acknowledged in other threads that there are a few traditions that focus on this "doing Love" as being central and reflect in everything they do, in acknowledgement of such Commands (they are not found in the USA, for the most part). But are you arguing that because you've heard this type of thing "any number of times" in your life, it's common? That's quite simply not my experience at all, nor that of the people around me. Perhaps it is just my own experience. Perhaps it's just growing up in and around the left-wing of a very left-wing church, listening to my dad (http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkzNTcmZmdiZWw3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTY2NzA3ODUmeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXky) preach. But yes, that's what I've heard. Unfortunately he gave his sermons extemporaneously. But I'm searching for some of his stuff.

You've heard of Jack Spong. Behind the headlines, behind the "controversial" and nearly heterodoxical self-promotion lay just the message you're looking for.

Hell, I waited a few Sundays after this subforum was established, just to employ the DirecTV to spend substnative time among the "reglious channels." I heard about the "false Christ" of Revelations, and how "our Christ" would come on a white horse with a sword, but the "false Christ" would come on a white horse with a bow; I heard about how "doomsday" was coming for politicians who affirmed a woman's right to control her own flesh; I heard about how the many were going to Hell, and the few to Heaven, and how the pastor "held no illusions" about his own flock, submitting "...most of you all are going to Hell."; I heard about how 1948 marked a place known in Revelations, and that because there was a contigous Israel, that THIS generation was the generation to see the Last Days...if we could defeat Iran; I heard Dr. Creflo Dollar and his "cutting-edge media ministry" offer up their new "Asia-PAcific" region for their online bookstore, and prayer for those in Asia not yet reached by Creflo and Taffi Dollar's "outreach"; I saw flag draped pulpits on Thomas Dexter Jakes' program as not he but some other pastor in his name promoted the "Woman Thou Art Loosed" annual women's conference...and some other stuff I can't exactly remember. Nothing on any daily or regular affirmation of the Greatest Commands...no review on how the effort at "doping Love" was going...nothing at all on who stood fast AGAINST those Commands, and how, if at all, that opposition was institutionalized, and/or how to recognize it.

I listened to the AM radio in my area - which, on Sundays, actually bleeds over onto stations like ESPN Radio at night - and heard mostly music, and, when there was preaching, mostly about that individualized, internal belief dialogue that you must successfully navigae in order to get in to Heaven. I've never once heard how eternal life is tied to anything other than belief in the litany of ostensible facts surrounding the storyline of Christ's life. You're looking in the wrong places. Try the National Cathedral in Washington. Listen to the Bishop preach. She has a good message, I've heard (2nd hand, but worth a shot nonetheless).

Hell, if you have any INTERNET links to any pastor's sermons that articulate what I've articulated, above, I'd sure be glad to read them. That the Greatest Commands are the way to eternal life? I've not read that at all. I'm searching for something that references the great commandments. But, in the meantime, you can look where I'm looking:

http://www.dioceseofnewark.org/vox.html Scroll down, and look for the Bishop's messages. They're pretty close.

[Val1]

Good question, Mel. Or rather, series of questions.

The concern I have with your synthesis is that it you are starting from one point -- Christ's giving of the two greatest commandments -- and going from there. Picking and choosing what we want to believe and accept and what it is we want to ignore, is a human tendency, but I think we all run into problems when we pick and choose with scripture. The central task is to be able to take the entirety of scripture and not just the elements that appeal to us.

Jesus gave us a lot more information than just His two commandments. I agree with you completely that we don't talk nearly enough about loving our neighbor and fully exploring who our neighbor is. You are dead on. Now why this is ignored as much as you say by internet or televangelists is a question I cannot answer, but I can tell you that there are many of struggling with this. You would never be able to find any evidence that my church is wrestling with this because my church is so afraid to advocate anything, to espouse anything, to proclaim anything, that you would never see it. My best friend, a "fundie" preacher is planting a church whose mission is to love one another. You'll never find him anywhere either. Suffice it to say, the love your neighbor message, though, is being preached and taught.

The issue I have with your thesis is that it ignores the Man-God aspect of the two commandments. Yes, we must love our neighbor, but far more important is loving God. If I don't accept the deity of Christ, then I am left believeing that he is just a good man, and for that matter, I ought to follow Gandhi.

God is the gate keeper to Heaven. If someone doesn't like that, I can see why they might reject God on those terms. But if God does exist, I suppose He gets to make the rules, and the rule is that you get to Heaven by loving God. When Christ called the disciples, the first words he told them, every time, was "follow me". Christ said "I am the way and the truth and the light. No man comes to the Father but through me." In John's revelation, He states, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears me and opens the door, I will come in (or words to that effect)". If the wages of sin is death, well, then, eternal life is reserved for anyone who believes in God. So, when Christ comes back from death, and surely these were the most important words He'd ever say, because you'd have to think He'd really have his disciples attention, He told them to go out to all the nations, baptizing in His name.

So, yeah, Christianity is about loving your neighbor. You made the point well, but it is about more than that. As Christopher quoted in another post, the real challenge in Christianity is not in balancing sometimes competing issues, but in living in competing priorities simultaneously.

I do have to love my neighbor, but I have to love my God more.

[DoctorD]

The bible is like a deck of cards: you can deal any hand you want.

[Yankee_Blue]

The bible is like a deck of cards: you can deal any hand you want.

Way to stay on topic.

[DoctorD]

Way to stay on topic.
Au contraire. Mel has pulled out one story from the NT and used it to condemn most Christians for being hypocrites. Then he has gone further and complained about Paul's theology because it doesn't "fit" his preferences. So I'm just agreeing with Val1 - you have to take the NT and the bible as a whole - otherwise you can pull stuff out to prove belief system you want.

BTW Mel, is there any significance that the Good Samaritan story is only found in Luke - Paul's secretary and good friend? Luke had to get the story from someone.

[royalstilton]

Mark 1:15b says, "Repent and believe the good news." What is the good news? First of all, that the Kingdom of God is available; it is not an ethereal place of clouds, harps and angels, but rather where God has dominion as Lord and Savior over the lives of those who "believe that he is and is a rewarder of those who seek him" (Heb. 11:6).

Jesus said in John 17, "This is life eternal, that they would know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you sent." ( the word know in this context means that the person has a relationship with Jesus/God that is intimate, in the sense of being acquainted in great depth )

Because people are human and fallible, the degree to which they pursue knowledge of God and allow him to be Lord and Savior varies greatly. But it starts with a completed work of the Holy Spirit, who reveals Jesus' deity to us, as with Peter. ( "Who do you all say I am?" Matt 16:15 ).

It is senseless to argue that one must perfectly obey the commands of Jesus to gain entrance to the Kingdom: 1 Jn 1:8-10 makes that abundantly clear. Further, Chapter 7 of Paul's epistle to the Church at Rome indicates in no uncertain terms that the Christian life is fraught with occasions of sin.

I don't deny that Christians individually, and churches as the organized arm of Christ's body, do less loving of their neighbors than one might expect. But we have to compare apples to apples. What would these same Christians do, were it not for Christ? Would there be charitable works on the scale at which they are performed were it not for the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the lives of true believers?

To judge on other grounds ignores the fact that Jesus redeems people, and they change in character, perhaps more slowly than we would hope, but they change, nonetheless.

[christopher d]

Au contraire. Mel has pulled out one story from the NT and used it to condemn most Christians for being hypocrites. Then he has gone further and complained about Paul's theology because it doesn't "fit" his preferences. So I'm just agreeing with Val1 - you have to take the NT and the bible as a whole - otherwise you can pull stuff out to prove belief system you want.
Actually, he pulled out two commandments Jesus himself called the most important. Love God, Love your Neighbor. I don't know if it's directly lifted from scripture or just part of the old Book of Common Prayer, but in the Episcopal Mass, following the reading of those two commandments comes the lines: "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets". These weren't just any two lines of scripture -- they're marked as the primary teachings of Jesus's message.

Two personal anecdotes here: My uncle -- not a churchgoer by any stretch of the imagination -- was doing some volunteer work at a church feeding homeless people. One person came in to get some lunch without having gone to mass first. When one of the people running the pantry found out, she took the man's plate and ordered him out. My uncle never came back.

Second: I sang for awhile at a very ritzy and stuffy Episcopal church on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. A homeless man walked in one afternoon and proceeded to bathe himself in the baptismal font (which was in the back of the church by the doors facing 5th). I don't recall if it was laity (ushers or other folk) or junior clergy that were shuffling him out the door, but the very, very stuffy rector (English accent and all) stopped them dead in their tracks, suggesting that that might be a perfect use of the Baptismal Font in that moment. *That's* loving one's neighbor.

[Mel Brennan]

Good question, Mel. Or rather, series of questions.

Thanks.

The concern I have with your synthesis is that it you are starting from one point -- Christ's giving of the two greatest commandments -- and going from there.

For you, does, or does not, the quote of Christ "On these two Commandments hang all the law and the prophets" mean exactly that? If not, what does that phrase mean to you? What type of relationship - because clearly Christ is establishing SOME kind of relationship of everything else to these COmmands in this sentence - with the COmmands, for you, is being established? A cursory one? This part is, I think, fundamental.

Picking and choosing what we want to believe and accept and what it is we want to ignore, is a human tendency, but I think we all run into problems when we pick and choose with scripture.

Far from picking and choosing among the scripture that's been assembled into the Bible as you and I currently experience it (we're not talking about, for example, a Geneva Bible, right, or various Nag Haammadi scripture, or other "gnostic" gospels, right? Because then the very idea of picking and choosing among scripture throws the entire question of the contigous Bible - and who CHOSE those books FOR you and I, and why they did it - into sharp relief for substantive analysis, does it not?), I feel as if I'm looking directly at what Christ has said, and wondering why the PRIMACY of the Greatest Commands is not affirmed in, for example, the Nicene Creed, the Apostle's Creed, the Invitation to Christian Discipleship, and is made ironic in moments like Fellowship Moments (where one takes the time out of the service to do something obviously considered special and uncommon - tell your "neighbor" in the pew next to you "God loves you and so do I," as if that was NOT the fundamental way of being in the world for those following Christ, and had to be called upon, institutionalize, as a special way of regarding one another, if ofr just a moment. I asked the pastor 'If Jesus' COmmands to Love are central, and they have primacy, isn't the Fellowship Moment redundant?' He replied 'the Greatest Commands simply aren't central.' I asked 'Given [all the above I've posted], isn't that a mistake, possibly a crucial one?' He replied, 'It is and it isn't.' We explored this, which of course led to the pastor submitting that faith has to be enough in these matters.)

The central task is to be able to take the entirety of scripture and not just the elements that appeal to us.

Well, in the course of wrestling with that task, why is it that you stop with the Scripture that's been codified for you in the Bible, and not all Scripture that's available to you? In addition, I repeat my question above, here: It's not that other Scripture is being ignored, but isn't it CLEAR, from Christ's "hanging" of all other Scripture and prophecy UPON the execution of these two COmmands that, well, execution of these two COmmands must come first? That illumination of the SCripture comes not from "balancing" them one against the other, but from "doing Love"? THat you may not evne be able to UNDERSTAND other Scripture wtihout being grounded in the Greatest COmmands as your daily drumbeat of life and living? That aspects of prophecy will NEVER Come to pass without the world being grounded in the COmmands to Love? For Christians, what, exactly, does "upon these two COmmandments hang all the law and the prophets" mean? What does it call you to do? Why is there a GREATEST Command, and a second "like unto it" at all, if they don't have primacy in our actions and in the way we approach our lives (even IF you were to cede that they do not directly inform all other law and prophecy, which others may but I do not)?

Jesus gave us a lot more information than just His two commandments.

But Commanded that you begin with love, and that all other "information" "hung" upon the execution - or at least the undertaking - of the COmmands to love.

I agree with you completely that we don't talk nearly enough about loving our neighbor and fully exploring who our neighbor is. You are dead on.

Thanks, but I ALSO think that "talking more about it" is DIFFERENT than "Making it central and that from which all other analysis, decision-making and other engagement of scripture and prophecy flows." THAT'S what I'm arguing.

Now why this is ignored as much as you say by internet or televangelists is a question I cannot answer, but I can tell you that there are many of struggling with this.

Now I think that we know why popcultural church activity ignores this. Because, to be glib, until everyone's "doing love," there's no other sermon. Hell, if "church" is the idea of meeting to talk about an be edified by work done in Christ's name during the week by the congreation, there might be no reason to meet up EXCEPT to talk about successes, setbacks and strategies to stand fast for love, mercy and nonviolence and stand fast against hate, unmercifulness, and violence, local to global. There, in my framework, is NO OTHER BUSINESS the "church" can POSSIBLY be ABOUT, other than laying the GROUNDWORK for wrestling with other prophecy and scripture post-the execution of the Greatest Commands.

You would never be able to find any evidence that my church is wrestling with this because my church is so afraid to advocate anything, to espouse anything, to proclaim anything, that you would never see it.

The churches I've attended advocate all kinds of things; never - NEVER - have I heard them TIE, fundamentally, being in relationship with Christ as the execution of the things Christ gave primacy. Never. I can count on one hand the times that the Greatest Commands even came up in sermons. And remember, these Commands are found in the OT too. They have been a part of Hebrew law for a LOOOOOONG time. The DIFFERENCE here is, Christ says not only are they what you and others submit above - one of many things to blaance and consider in and among all Scripture - but they are the GREATEST Commands. They are the Commands UPON WHICH everything else hinges.

My study of the historical debate over Scripture by rabbinical classes at the time of Jesus and before submits that the very QUESTION "What is the greatest commandment in the law?" was, for and among rabbis, particularly young rabbis, a TRICK question. The correct, wisened response was supposed to be "There IS no GREATEST commandment." Like the equivocational analysis you and others offer here, the wisdom of THAT time was similiar: all of the "law" - all SCripture - was to be "struggled" with in totality. That nothing had primacy.

As a result, Christ's reponse there, to that question, is absolutely telling. He ESTABLISHES not only that these commands are considerations to be "factored in," in and among all our OTHER SCriptural considerations, towards ends that suit us or our comceptions of God best, but that there WERE, in fact, Two Great Commands. That, in fact, ALL other considerations HAD to flow from these Commands. That they had primacy OVER the other words and notions in the law. That without comprehensive lovingkindness, all other considerations failed. That's revolutionary, and was not the case before such a proclamation. Now, for many, without ALSO saying that "Christ is God and of God in ways we cannot be," these are just words like ITN's word were just words, and that we can embrace or ignore them as we can Karl Keller. I don't need Paul's kind of deification to know that that's a holy notion. Dogma doesn't make loving the Numinous and loving everyone who comes into my awareness universally "right," it IS so, whether we acknowledge it or not.

My best friend, a "fundie" preacher is planting a church whose mission is to love one another. You'll never find him anywhere either.

Ah, but I just did. Thanks for that. :)

Suffice it to say, the love your neighbor message, though, is being preached and taught

Do you think it's being taught successfully though? The CPT teams, don't they have it right? That if we're setting out to - or are already about - loving one another, how can we stand by and allow harm to come to either innocents in the WTC, or innocents near Kabul or around Tikrit? A baby in Iraq and a baby in Guatemala and a baby in south side Chicago and a baby in Oaklandand a baby in Uganda and a baby in Chad and a baby in Scotland all have the same value...all are loved, as arethe adults who brought them forth, right? So if there are statistically significant numbers of folks who are learning "the love your neighbor message," where is that evinced in our daily doings? I think that the accompanying "internal belief number line," above a certain nmumber of which there's an expectation to get into Heaven, is an accompanying framework sensibility that acutally works AGAINST "doing Love" in the world. You don't have to...why should you, even if you are taught that it is the way of being in the world?

The issue I have with your thesis is that it ignores the Man-God aspect of the two commandments. Yes, we must love our neighbor, but far more important is loving God.

That's interesting for you to say, but its not borne out by Christ's language, his actual quotes here. Christ submits "On these TWO commandments hang all the law and the prophets." For you to go ahead and give primacy to one or the other by saying "...far more important is loving God..." is you inserting your own will here, is it not? Where does Christ say that one of thewse two commandments is far more important, and where does he - as I'm asserting - equivocate them? He FURTHER equivcates them - and offers no establishment of one over the other - in his answer to the lawyer preceding the Parable of the Good Samaritan, where he says "Do this, and ye shall live." He doesn't offer any addenda submitting "btw, if you can't get loving your neighbor done, don't worry about it because loving God is the more important one anyway." This is entirely you, and not found from Christ, when he talks ABOUT these Commands, anywhere. In fact, the clear opposite is found. He ties them together each and every time.

If I don't accept the deity of Christ, then I am left believeing that he is just a good man, and for that matter, I ought to follow Gandhi.

The choices are not limited to "Accept Paul's frame on Christ or he must be marginalized to [insert whatever less than godly consideration you enjoy here]." They are only limited that way for someone who knows only one way of knowing Christ. But what I'm saying is that if you believe in ways typical the diety of Christ - all-wise, all-knowing, all powerful etc. - then how do you ignore the Greatest Commands? How, in fact, do you walk away from Christ's TYING of those Commands to eternal life? It's an interesting circle of irony, isn't it? Here we are, the most "religious" modern nation on earth (note: modernity ain't all it's cracked up to be, don't get me wrong here...), and we also kill and invade and harm and occupy and establish economic systems where there must be losers and winners...in the name of Christ.

God is the gate keeper to Heaven.

You assert.

If someone doesn't like that, I can see why they might reject God on those terms.

If someone doesn't like what you assert, then they might reject what you assert? Of course they might. But what if "None may come to the Father but by me" quite simply doesn't mean "unless they believe in the sotry surrounding my life," but means "unless they do what they've been Commanded to do?"

But if God does exist, I suppose He gets to make the rules, and the rule is that you get to Heaven by loving God.

Not according to the book you consider the World of God, where the man you consider GOs is actually quoted. 'How do I get eternal life?' The lawyer asks. What is Christ's answer? There's no DOUBT that he ties the two Commands together. For many, the internal struggle to "love God" is difficult but winnable, especially in ways that allow us to do whatever we WANT to our (Indonesian, Iraqi, Angloan, Nicaraguan) neighbor, while still loving God and, thus, getting into Heaven. But to ALSO have to love my neighbor, to have neighbor defined as anyonefor whom Ican exhibit mercy, that's a paradigm shift that costs too much...how can I play Xbox 360 and manage my stocks and watch American Idol when there's homeless people down the street and a war I'm funding? Where's the fun in that life?

When Christ called the disciples, the first words he told them, every time, was "follow me". Christ said "I am the way and the truth and the light. No man comes to the Father but through me."

Which, as I've submitted, could just as easily be 'follow me = do what I've Commanded you to do, and follow my example" and I've already dealt with the other statement above. For me, my interpretations of those statements RECONCILE with the assertions about the Greatest Commands I've made before. Yours do not.

In John's revelation, He states, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears me and opens the door, I will come in (or words to that effect)".

Any man that hears the truth of the Greatest Commands as the only possible way of being in the world for humanity that makes sense, and becomes about such lovingkindness, gets eternal life. Internally consistent with the COmmands; other interpretations are not.

If the wages of sin is death, well, then, eternal life is reserved for anyone who believes in God.

It's interesting how you've discovered a way to leave out the Second Greatest Command as if you have Scripture that explicity does so - which you do NOT, and as if you do NOT have scripture that explicitly ties them together - which you DO!

So, when Christ comes back from death, and surely these were the most important words He'd ever say...

Surely. Come ON! What did Christ say were the most important things to do, and what did he hinge all other considerations UPON? Why are we arguing this? Again, on Christian's own terms, we are not dealing with the Bible that's in front of us, the very words Christ gave you!

So, yeah, Christianity is about loving your neighbor. You made the point well, but it is about more than that. As Christopher quoted in another post, the real challenge in Christianity is not in balancing sometimes competing issues, but in living in competing priorities simultaneously.

But thee are only competing priorities when you fail to acknowledge the primacy of the Greatest Commands, and make a decision INDEPENDENT of the Scripture you claim as writ holy, that - for example - Christ's clear tying of the two greatest commands together, well, he didn't really mean that, and that we can move long entirely different lines as if he said something else.

I do have to love my neighbor, but I have to love my God more.

You have a fundamentally different Bible than I've referenced. Which version do you have?

[Mel Brennan]

Au contraire. Mel has pulled out one story from the NT and used it to condemn most Christians for being hypocrites. Then he has gone further and complained about Paul's theology because it doesn't "fit" his preferences. So I'm just agreeing with Val1 - you have to take the NT and the bible as a whole - otherwise you can pull stuff out to prove belief system you want.

Are the Greatest Commands primal, or are they one of a number of other considerations to be balanced into an integrative redress of the Bible as offered to you? Are the Greatest Commands that upon which all other scripture and prophecy hang, or are other Scriptures and prophecies perfectly independent (or as significant) as the Greatest Commands? Do the Greatest Commands come together, in a package, or can they be spliced aprt and given priorities in way where one can situationally marginalise the other ("if loving God means I've got to kill godless Iraqis, or produce torture of the godless, then the Second Greatest Command can be ignored for the time being")? I guess these are the questions i'm interested in exploring - amogn all theothers I['ve posted - and claims that I'm picking and choosing are facile efforts to marginalise an assertion of primacy that Christ himself asserts, and wonder at its absence in the daily doings of Christians from your President on down. Paul does not make central that being a Christian is being Christ-like. He makes central that being a Christian is believing in the story. I feel like Paul is picking and choosing among scripture, and failing to acknowledge the primacy of action and of consideration and of belief, really, that Christ offers. But I guess I also don't limit myself to what we've been told is the Bible, either. I'm utterly uininterested in dogma. But many Christians ARE. Dogmatically, how do you NOT make the Greatest Commands part of the daily drumbeat of existence? How can wars launched by Christians ever EVER happen? How can poverty, homelessness, starvation, a system of winners and losers, ever EVER happen under Christians, ever be tolerated by Christians? How does that work? Where is the balanced scriptural analysis for that, and how does it subsume the Greatest COmmands?

BTW Mel, is there any significance that the Good Samaritan story is only found in Luke - Paul's secretary and good friend?

I don't know, is there?

[Mel Brennan]

Mel:

Does the Christ you understand/know, forgive?

I don't know; I'm not sure that that is important to the Christ I'm understanding/getting to know, because I haven't really gone beyond wrestling with manifesting love, all the time, as the prerequisite to everything else...the thing in which everything else must be grounded.

I know that the forgiveness of sin is fundamental to current conceptions of Paul's take on the Numinous; again, though, if we make the Greatest Commands primal, and see everything else THROUGH the prism of the Commands to love God/neighbor, and that "doing Love" is the way to eternal life, then other Scripture begins to make sense for me.

Example: “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no excuse for their sin” (John 15:22). For me - examined through the lens of a supreme expectation, a Command to undertake an effort to be love mercy and nonviolence alongside loving the Uncaused Cause - this is saying "before I came and helped you undestand that love is primal, you WERE in fact operating in a dynamic of blancing choices and priorities; NOW, you've come into the awareness of how love and mercy and nonviolence are holy, subversive, transformative, and unquestionably the way forward. Equipped NOW with such knowledge, hateful/unmerciful/violent acts are shot through with an intimate awareness that such is wrong/sinful. We "...have no excuse" now.

We know what we have to do.

But there's no doubt that I don't cast the fundamental problem (http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=222990) as one of sin, the solution being forgiveness. For me, the fundamental human problem is ignorance, the solution being enlightenment. Now, absent the former description of the human problem, there is no possible way to embrace Christ as Paul offers him, and just war and killing is utterly possible. With the latter I can come into a full and edifiying relationship with Christ, one where only lovingkindness is possible, only nonviolence and mercy as the forms of agency by which Love is made manifest on Earth acceptable.

But this particular thread really is about those who embrace the modern dogma, and how the Commands to Love aren't central. It's not really about me. It can become about me, if folks would like, but that wasn't it's original intent. I'm mainly interested in folks walking through the above points in ways that call upon the Bible as the Word of God, God quotes within such, and coem to another conclusion that somehow mitigates things like "On these two Commandments hang all the law and the prophets" (Matthew 22:40).

[royalstilton]

Here is part of the problem: when someone quotes Scripture in or out of context, it is crucial that they have at the very least a contextual understanding of the verses they are quoting: the whys and wherefores. Scripture explains itself. One verse provides commentary on another. This isn't particularly mysterious, but it does help to have a broad-based sense of what the backstory is when one starts parsing verses.

The First Commandment: to love ( the Lord your ) God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength ( depending which verse we are quoting ). This is a particular God. Not the invention of Man, but the Great I Am. In the Greek text, the word translated "with" is "ek", a word that has the sense of "from out of". The idea is that of a conduit, an issuing forth. First John says: "This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be a propitiation for our sins." Apart from this truth, it is not possible to speak of love with authority or understand what loving God is about.

Where does the love come from with which we are to love God? or, equally, to love our neighbor? Certainly not from within the heart of man. Scripture defines the condition of man's heart. So if we are to love others properly, the love of God must be resident in ourselves.

How would it get there? How would we appropriate such love?

If you read the Sermon on the Mount, it becomes clear quite quickly that Jesus has a different way of looking at human relationships from the way we routinely look at them, we who are the sinners for whom Christ died. But Scripture says that we are to conduct ourselves in such a way that we shall be known for our love. So herein lies the rub. We cannot love one another as we ought, but yet we must. Surely the solution to such an enigma is grounded in understanding what the Bible is teaching.

So, essentially, I agree completely that Christianity is not to be on ones own terms, but it isn't what you, Mel, think, either.

I sense that you are sort of a Gnostic, at the core. Tell me I'm wrong.

[Mel Brennan]

...I sense that you are sort of a Gnostic, at the core. Tell me I'm wrong.


You must do more than sense it, as I tell you in the previous post that "...I don't cast the fundamental problem as one of sin, the solution being forgiveness. For me, the fundamental human problem is ignorance, the solution being enlightenment." Gnosis = "knowledge." But while your position can be reduced to various dogmatic particulars regarding Paul's take on Christ's way of being in the world, I certainly don't ascribe to all the known tenets of Gnosticism...thus, you're assertion "sort of a Gnostic," is probably as close to a dogma - and thus an ability to marginalise - of language and ideation as you'll find.

Gnosticism is a blanket term for various mystical initiatory religions, sects and knowledge schools, which were most prominent in the first few centuries AD. It is also applied to modern revivals of these groups and, sometimes, by analogy to all religious movements based on secret knowledge, gnosis, and thus can lead to confusion.

As it has here.

No, far from actually being a gnostic, I am a person still seeking. I simply wonder, fully understanding your dogmatic frame on the Numinous, having been raised in it, at how what your God said, even though your God takes the opportunity in the book you call the Word of God to say it more than once without "contextualization," or IOW qualification, gets treated that way anyway.

It's in fact why we have the world we have. Were "Christians" - all those who claim Christ as God - actually about what God Commanded they be about, the world would be a fundamentally different place. Were they to "hang all other law and prophets" upon those Commands, as they've been Told to do by the man they call God in the book they claim is the Word of God, then the world would be a fundamentally different place.

It'd be one thing to claim I was parsing/picking-and-choosing among Bible verses if I were, say, going to Deuteronomy, and claiming that because in that book of the Bible it says that when a woman is raped in the city, both the rapist AND the woman should be stoned to death (the rapist for being a rapist and the woman for not screaming loud enough...if you are in the city, and getting raped, you must have wanted to get raped if noone heard you scream...thus, the stoning to death thing...), that all other Scripture should be interpreted through the lens of that chapter and verse.

I'm not doing that. Any intimations that I'm doing that deceive other posters nad readers in this forum. I am starting from the place and space that Christ says to start from. He DOES IN FACT establish the Greatest Commands. He DOES NOT IN FACT parse those two Commands, but he DOES IN FACT tie them together, more than once, throughout the NT. He DOES IN FACT hang all other law and prophecy upon the undertaking/execution of those Commands. He DOES IN FACT tie eternal life to the execution of these Commands. He DOES IN FACT provide a generous definition of "neighbor." He DOES IN FACT command, in refutation of earlier Scripture, us to "love our enemies." He DOES IN FACT command, in refutation of earlier Scripture, all of us to exist nonviolently.

All words of the man you call God. All out of the book you call the Word of God. There's no directive from God, in the Words of GOd, Commanding you to "contextualize" or qualify these Commands.

Let's be clear: doing so - "contextualizing" allows "Christians" to abandon the clear duty set forth before them, a path MUCH HARDR than resting replete in the internal belief dialogue that Paul calls for, an inside effort undertaken in hopes of ending up above a certain number on the "belief number line" come judgement day, and ths getting past the Pearlies...

Taking the man you call God at his word, given the Word of God found in the book that contains all the truth dogmatic Christians submit they need to know, means that you can't wage war...how is war nonviolent loving of one's neighbor or enemy? You can't establish a system of vast wealth inequality when you have to "love your neighbor as yourself."

It forces you to stand fast, not unlikt those of the Christian (and mUslim) Peace Teams, in-between combatants and say "Because I love you, and I love you, and because mercy and nonviolence aree the ways of being in the world I'm commanded to manifest, I must give of myself instead of allowing you to harm one another, because of such love."

It forces us to challenge the use of $1.6 trillion in tax money every year, so much of which goes not to anyone reflected in the Sermon on the Mount, but to hateful, unmerciful, and certainly violent weaponry and warmongering efforts.

Again, this is, to me, undeniable on Christians own terms of who God is, and where God's word is found. The fact that folks here - look back through the thread - have used various Scripture to figure out ways out of having to do what the've been expressly Commanded to do is why "Christianity," in my view, finds itself so perfectly aligned with war, with violence, and with a lack of mercy today. it's how people even THINK that they have, for example, the Godly space to place Christ in front of forays into Fallujah or Nicaragua (as my father's godson used to do); why folks even THINK that they can both be pious and step over homeless folks in the city; why they even THINK that Christ can be tied to economic prosperity for anyone other than everyone.

Do you even believe that these are Christ's words? Is it possible without the infusion of "context," to tell me what, exactly, the Greatest COmmands - both of them - mean to you? What is the defintion of "neighbor," to you? What is the employment of nonviolence to you? What, exactly, does the sentence "on these two COmmandments hang all the law and the prophets" mean to you?

Or is it that "context" MUST inform the understanding of thewse word of your Gods for you? That you MUST balance Christ's words with some other Scripture somewhere to...what? To come up with an interpretation of, for example, 'just war?' I don't think that Christ's words allow for a just war. But maybe I need some "context." Maybe balancing among Biblical priorities provides me with the flexibility to justify, in Scripture, pretty much anything, right? 'Just wars,' rapacious capitalism or fascism, killing, chattel slavery, intolerance...in "context," all of these things find justification in the Bible, to some extent or another.

The justification for these things cannot be found when you prioritize the way, it seems clear to me, Christ prioritized.

It must be just me though. Thanks for your time and effort to help me understand the contexts.

"Context." Christ must be spinning in his right-hand seat.

Enjoy.