I believe the underlying essence of Christianity involves individuals freely aligning themselves with Christ and God’s creative purposes through their personal spiritual freedom guided by love. At its core, Christianity is a religion of individual choice and discernment, one that cannot be coerced or imposed by external forces.
Dr. Charlton has an insightful post up today about the ultimate purpose and meaning of Christianity at the individual level. I highly recommend it. I not only sympathize with what Dr. Charlton has expressed in that post but like him, regard salvation and theosis as the purpose and meaning of Christianity.
Traditionally, individuals aligned themselves with Christ and God’s creative purposes via churches. How uncoerced and free such choices were throughout history is debatable. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that the choice to align themselves with the Divine was indeed the free choice of every individual Christian, and even when it was not, the consciousness of most past Christians rarely rebelled against the religion into which they were born.
Aligning oneself with a church today — or leaving a church for another or abandoning Christianity altogether — is entirely a free, individual choice. Christians choose a church for many reasons, but one hopes the choice includes the purpose of salvation. (I have intentionally sidestepped theosis because, except for Orthodox tradition in the East, very few Christian traditions include or emphasize theosis as a “meaning” of spiritual life within Christianity.)
Because Christians "just do" freely choose their churches, it is assumable that they are motivated to choose a church that offers what they perceive to be their best avenue to salvation.
For some Christians, this might be an uber-liberal church that is practically indistinguishable from the agenda of the external secular world. For others, it might be an ultra-conservative church that adheres to rigid, established doctrine and dogma. For others, the choice may involve a series of choices culminating in abandoning one tradition in favor of converting to another.
Determining which path to salvation is safe, or at the very least, safer than the others, becomes challenging within such an environment, particularly when virtually all Christian churches have revealed themselves to be severely or terminally compromised, corrupted, and co-opted institutions.
All the same, most Christians choose to align themselves with some church or other because they cannot conceive of Christianity or the path to salvation as anything but churches and other external factors. In this sense, the chosen church or tradition becomes the “safe” choice because it includes a path to salvation.
Of course, not all Christians choose to align themselves with churches. Some choose instead to become solitary Christians who focus exclusively on interpreting the Bible or pursue so-called mystical paths.
Church Christians tend to view such unaffiliated Christians as, at best, oddballs and, at worst, heretics or Gnostics that have either veered out of the “true” faith altogether or are engaged in needlessly dangerous and risky spiritual journeys that are more likely to lead further away from salvation than they are to lead the pursuers toward it. Fittingly enough, solitary Christians believe the same thing about church-affiliated Christians.
There is no “safe” path to salvation today, neither within nor out of churches!
The conventional church-centered paths to salvation are just as fraught with peril as unconventional non-church paths may be, perhaps even more so! Moreover, no Christian tradition has revealed the full potential of theosis, entailing that individuals must reveal this full potential outside of church walls.
The current state of human consciousness and the development of Christianity leads me to believe that the future of Christianity lies almost exclusively in self-discovered, personal revelations rather than established doctrines and traditions -- leading to higher spiritual achievements and to what thinkers like Berdyaev describe as “a new orientation in human consciousness.”
I am not implying that all Christians must take such a path. On the contrary, I accept that most contemporary Christians reject such a path outright, mostly because they deem it heretical and dangerous.
I, on the other hand, have embarked on such a path because I believe conventional, everyday Christianity has stagnated and dead-ended, which, ironically enough, makes it just as dangerous as any unconventional, individually chosen Christian quest or journey.
All paths to purpose and meaning are fraught with danger and risk. I believe the danger and risks on the individual path are of a more positive sort, the sort that offer the potential reward of further development and new revelation, but I do not intend to force that belief on any other Christian.
There simply is no safe way to be a Christian in today’s world!
We should all acknowledge that. At the very least, it would be a start.
Dr. Charlton has an insightful post up today about the ultimate purpose and meaning of Christianity at the individual level. I highly recommend it. I not only sympathize with what Dr. Charlton has expressed in that post but like him, regard salvation and theosis as the purpose and meaning of Christianity.
Traditionally, individuals aligned themselves with Christ and God’s creative purposes via churches. How uncoerced and free such choices were throughout history is debatable. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that the choice to align themselves with the Divine was indeed the free choice of every individual Christian, and even when it was not, the consciousness of most past Christians rarely rebelled against the religion into which they were born.
Aligning oneself with a church today — or leaving a church for another or abandoning Christianity altogether — is entirely a free, individual choice. Christians choose a church for many reasons, but one hopes the choice includes the purpose of salvation. (I have intentionally sidestepped theosis because, except for Orthodox tradition in the East, very few Christian traditions include or emphasize theosis as a “meaning” of spiritual life within Christianity.)
Because Christians "just do" freely choose their churches, it is assumable that they are motivated to choose a church that offers what they perceive to be their best avenue to salvation.
For some Christians, this might be an uber-liberal church that is practically indistinguishable from the agenda of the external secular world. For others, it might be an ultra-conservative church that adheres to rigid, established doctrine and dogma. For others, the choice may involve a series of choices culminating in abandoning one tradition in favor of converting to another.
Determining which path to salvation is safe, or at the very least, safer than the others, becomes challenging within such an environment, particularly when virtually all Christian churches have revealed themselves to be severely or terminally compromised, corrupted, and co-opted institutions.
All the same, most Christians choose to align themselves with some church or other because they cannot conceive of Christianity or the path to salvation as anything but churches and other external factors. In this sense, the chosen church or tradition becomes the “safe” choice because it includes a path to salvation.
Of course, not all Christians choose to align themselves with churches. Some choose instead to become solitary Christians who focus exclusively on interpreting the Bible or pursue so-called mystical paths.
Church Christians tend to view such unaffiliated Christians as, at best, oddballs and, at worst, heretics or Gnostics that have either veered out of the “true” faith altogether or are engaged in needlessly dangerous and risky spiritual journeys that are more likely to lead further away from salvation than they are to lead the pursuers toward it. Fittingly enough, solitary Christians believe the same thing about church-affiliated Christians.
There is no “safe” path to salvation today, neither within nor out of churches!
The conventional church-centered paths to salvation are just as fraught with peril as unconventional non-church paths may be, perhaps even more so! Moreover, no Christian tradition has revealed the full potential of theosis, entailing that individuals must reveal this full potential outside of church walls.
The current state of human consciousness and the development of Christianity leads me to believe that the future of Christianity lies almost exclusively in self-discovered, personal revelations rather than established doctrines and traditions -- leading to higher spiritual achievements and to what thinkers like Berdyaev describe as “a new orientation in human consciousness.”
I am not implying that all Christians must take such a path. On the contrary, I accept that most contemporary Christians reject such a path outright, mostly because they deem it heretical and dangerous.
I, on the other hand, have embarked on such a path because I believe conventional, everyday Christianity has stagnated and dead-ended, which, ironically enough, makes it just as dangerous as any unconventional, individually chosen Christian quest or journey.
All paths to purpose and meaning are fraught with danger and risk. I believe the danger and risks on the individual path are of a more positive sort, the sort that offer the potential reward of further development and new revelation, but I do not intend to force that belief on any other Christian.
There simply is no safe way to be a Christian in today’s world!
We should all acknowledge that. At the very least, it would be a start.
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