In Reply to: relaxed.. posted by ray on January 03, 2004 at 06:02:16:
Your reaction to my post was in the same vein as reactions I recieve from fundamentalists over my views, so I assumed you identify as such, and I am aware of mainstream fundamentalist theology. If your theology is more fluid, then good for you, as far as I'm concerned.
I don't have one particular 'source' of information or analysis. I am an original thinker, I'm not parroting off ideas I've learned from some book or any other individual.
I've reached these conclusions alone after spending years investigating scores of sources of information and having many personal spiritual experiences in many diverse spiritual environments, then finally putting all my findings together. And my conclusions are always open to being changed or modified with further insight and understanding).
One of the biggest sources of my own findings and conclusions has been the Bible itself. As far as all the other Bible comentaries and books on early Christendom, etc, I live in a very compact living space with no storage or workspace apart from my bedroom, so most of my research library is in storage. I wish I had time to drag it out and have a really meaty debate, but now that holidays are over, I'm about to launch into a very busy period as of tomorrow, so I won't have time for that unfortunately.
Yes, I agree it is difficult for you to debate current mainstream theology without quoting Paul, which is my whole point exactly. Without Paul's teachings, what would Christ's following look like today? What would be their understanding of Christ?
I want people here to delve into their own hearts re: what they really believe, instead of just conveniently falling back on quoting someone else's doctrines who lived in a completely different era and culture - and had a completely different (and far less informed) understanding of life - 2,000 years ago.
I feel its very spiritually lazy for Christians to just to 'go along with whatever Paul says on the matter' without really deeply looking into it themselves. I want Christ to be related to (and consulted with) as a living entity, not just discussed as a 'doctrine of Paul'.