24. We already know how to do 2
things quite well:
1. how to have a strong Christian
identity that is hostile toward
people of other religions.
25. We have the only way.
STRONG-
You are going to hell.
HOSTILE
We are God’s chosen.
You worship false gods.
resistance is futile.
you will be assimilated - or
26. We already know how to do 2
things quite well:
1. how to have a strong Christian
identity that is hostile toward
people of other religions.
2. how to have a weak Christian
identity that is tolerant (benign)
toward people of other religions.
27. it doesn’t matter what you believe.
all religions are the same.
all roads lead to god.
only sincerity matters.
doctrines divide.
weak-benign
keep religion private.
28. We haven’t yet learned ...
to have a strong Christian identity
that is benevolent
toward other religions.
29. Because I Follow Jesus, I love you.
I move toward “the other.”
I break down walls of hostility.
i stand with you in solidarity.
you are made in God’s image.
strong-
i am your servant.
benevolent
I practice human-kindness.
33. Give people a common enemy, and you will
give them a common identity. Deprive them
of an enemy and you will deprive them of
the crutch by which they know who they are.
- James Alison
34. "Historically, the amity, or goodwill, within the
group has often depended on enmity, or hatred,
between groups. But when you get to the global
level, that won't work... That cannot be the
dynamic that holds the planet together... But
what would be unprecedented is to have this
kind of solidarity and moral cohesion at a global
level that did not depend on the hatred of other
groups of people."
(Robert Wright, Nonzero: The Logic Of Human
Destiny, quoted in Evolutionaries: Unlocking The
Spiritual And Cultural Potential In Science's
Greatest Idea, by Carter Phipps)
35. Can Christians today build a new
kind of identity ... based on
hospitality and solidarity, not
hostility, to the other?
strong-
benevolent
56. Pentecost Sermon (Paul Nuechterlein)
For me, another clear sign of hope comes through the
irony of God raising up a faithful disciple of Jesus
Christ who was a Hindu and remained a Hindu. I'm
talking about Mahatma Gandhi, who said this, among
many other things, about Jesus:
Jesus expressed, as no other could, the spirit and will
of God. It is in this sense that I see him and recognize
him as the Son of God. And because the life of Jesus
has the significance and the transcendency to which I
have alluded, I believe that he belongs not solely to
Christianity, but to the entire world, to all races and
people...
57. We might ask, So why didn't Gandhi simply convert to Christianity?
But I think the better Pentecost question would be, Why should he
have to convert? Why should he have to change religions? Why
should he have to play into religion into the negative ways that
bring division? Did Jesus come to offer us a new religion to add to
our ways of dividing into differing cultures and languages -- the
Tower of Babel reality? Or did he come to help each of us within
our own religions and cultures to find the one true God of unity? I
think that Pentecost shows us the latter. We can welcome, as many
Christians are coming to do, the diversity of religious practices that
help lead to the experience of our oneness in God. Christians are
learning from Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims and indigenous
religions the effective religious practices of how to become closer to
the God of Jesus Christ. That's the Pentecost pouring out of the
Holy Spirit on all peoples, so that their experience of oneness
transcends their many languages and cultures.
58. Finally, the greatest sign of hope to me is how Gandhi helped
deepen our understanding of the Spirit of Truth, the Advocate. He
had his own name for it in Sanskrit: Satyagraha, he called it, which
translates as Truth Force. Satyagraha moved him and many millions
of people over the last century to learn Jesus' way to peace through
loving, nonviolent resistance to evil. Like Jesus on the cross, in this
way to peace we risk taking that old way of sin, righteousness, and
judgment on ourselves in order to reveal its futility, its wrongness,
and offering instead God's way of grace and forgiveness. Pentecost
is Satyagraha poured out on us so that we may bring peace to our
lives as family members, co-workers, neighbors, citizens, and, yes,
as both Jesus and Gandhi compelled us to do, as children of God --
all of humanity, children of God. Amen
Rev. Paul J. Nuechterlein
Delivered at Prince of Peace Lutheran, Portage, MI, May 27, 2012
60. diversity without domination
plurality without subordination
Fatherness that honors son-ness in equality (& ends patriarchy)
Son-ness that honors fatherness without rivalry (& ends patricide)
Fatherness and son-ness that uphold Spiritness without
homogeneity (ending absolutism)
A God who generates the next generation of God!