I just read Thinker's take on prayer being a universal tool of most faiths, and how many prayers are answered regardless of the person's religion, which I agree with.
Being an unrelenting psycho-spiritual inquirer myself, my ongoing experience of Christ has both led and compelled me to expand my own understanding and spiritual exploration far beyond the confines of the books making up the currently accepted version/translation of the Bible, and of mainstream traditional Pauline Christianity (which I explored thoroughly for several years after leaving TF).
After coming to an understanding of my experience in TF and learning about spiritual abuse and cults, I found I was seeing a tremendous amount of spiritual dysfunction, cultish behavior, denial, closed mindedness, manipulation, control, duality, deceit, phoniness and magical thinking in the Christian churches as well, especially from the pulpit.
Then I accidentally stumbled on a devoted Hindu who was extremely Christ-like, then some devoted Buddhists with the same Christ-like spirit, whose prayers were being answered. They had found the kingdom of God within themselves, just as Jesus taught us to do - (which, BTW, is also what the Buddha and many others before Jesus taught).
But when I looked further into their traditional religions, I found the same dysfunctions I earlier ascribed to the Christian churches.
My finding is that the spirit of Christ is freely available to anyone, anywhere, regardless of what belief or paradigm of reality they are currently subscribing to, because the Christ seed (the kingdom of God) is within us and need only be surrendered to, birthed and then nurtured with devotion. That was the 'good news' Jesus 'the Christed One' was preaching.
'The Anointed One' means 'The Christed One', ie: one who is fully God-realized, fully Christed, and one with the 'Father' - the supreme being - and as such is able to spontaneously trigger the opening of the kingdom of God/Christ seed in other humans who tap into His holy, Christed spirit. (The ‘vine and the branches’). As the New Testament teaches, we, too, are ultimately meant to become 'Christed' (fully God-realized) by 'taking on the mind of Christ' and nurturing the seed of the kingdom of God within us.
I've found that the 'original core essence' at the heart of most other religions I’ve studied thus far, before the formation of all men's stories and cultural dogmas around it, was the truth of 'the seed of the kingdom of God within' being birthed and nurtured by both divinity and one's own devotion.
Many religions besides Christianity speak of the experience of being 'born again' (which is the moment the Kingdom of God/Christ seed within first stirs to life and is first experienced as a 'yielding and opening'). Sufis and many other esoteric or mystical faiths speak of a very blissful personal relationship with 'the Divine Beloved' who is often even described as 'the Christ'.
Christ is both within and without and, - regardless of our current understanding and belief system - when the two converge, we experience bliss.
So what is religion - including Christianity - or any spiritually-oriented structure of belief? The heart awakens long before the mind understands. Religion or any spiritual framework is a) an attempt of the mind to understand this natural spiritual process that unfolds in us by creating a 'story' and a frame of reference so it can be assigned to memory; and b) an attempt to 'bottle', harness, control and manipulate this natural but phenomenally powerful human experience, by those who are ignorant and/or insincere.
a) Jesus knew the human mind needed stories and pictures and archetypal figures in order to understand the spiritual unfoldment process. He knew that those around him were already subscribing to a religious belief. So he used it as a starting point from which to open up their understanding further to whatever point of realization and higher awareness he could take them. And b) he also knew the 'usefulness' of religion as an attempt to control this process, and as a means of influence and power over others, which is why he showed such righteous indignation towards organized religion.
God is so far beyond our imagining it is ridiculous of us to think he could be confined to one finite little human religion, even Christianity.
That’s my take on things, thus far, anyhow. But check in with me again in a year's time, cause I may have a whole new, more expanded take by then. I've realized there is no stopping point to expanding one's awareness and understanding of Christ, God, the cosmos, etc. There is no 'plateau' on which we are meant to build a structure for our 'psycho-spiritual unfoldment process' and 'rest on our laurels', so to speak. ‘Cause that’s when religion kicks in.
To stay eternally opening and yielding to more Truth, ie: more 'Christ' is all we are really asked to do, without our mind needing to understand and hang labels on what we experience spiritually as our Godseed unfolds. Remember the little truth which a lot of us first heard through Berg. "Believe' means 'to drink in, to absorb, to become one with', - not 'to subscribe to information coming in from an external source'. What are we meant to absorb, drink in, become one with then? The Divine Beloved/Kingdom of God/Christ - within and without.
Have a Happy New Year everyone!