Comments on: Jesus Among Other Gods pt. II http://www.newlife-glastonbury.org/blog/2007/05/30/jesus-among-other-gods-pt-ii/ Thoughts on faith and culture from the community of NewLife Christian Fellowship, Glastonbury, CT Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:05:51 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Gordon Lawrence http://www.newlife-glastonbury.org/blog/2007/05/30/jesus-among-other-gods-pt-ii/comment-page-1/#comment-547 Gordon Lawrence Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:30:13 +0000 http://www.newlife-glastonbury.org/blog/2007/05/30/jesus-among-other-gods-pt-ii/#comment-547 Rabbi Boteach raises an interesting issue, and in one sense he is right. For Christians, it is an obligation to live as much as possible, at peace with all men. Christians have not always tried to avoid conflict and seem at times almost to thrive on it, but that is clearly not the way of Christ. However, at its heart, the Gospel of Jesus is as he put it: “I am the way” and “no one comes to the Father except by me”, that is exclusionary, and some might call intollerant, and I suppose it is. So the basis of Christianity is that Christ is the only way, and for that Christians have and will come into conflict. One of the problems that has always got Christians into trouble is that because they owe allegance to a power above the Kingdoms of this world, there comes a point where they will certainly have trouble in a dictatorship, and maybe under any poitical system. At some point, they will not bow to the worlds power, and dictators in particualar cannot stand that. That was also seen in Old Testament religion where the three men in the book of Daniel would not bow to the earthly king, for them, ultimately power was with God; and all else had to fall in place around that commitment. The interesting thing is that if a person has not come to a knowledge of Jesus, there is a sense in which Rabbi Boteach is right. Why is one religeon more right than another. Can there be any final authority, unless that authority is from one who is from God, one can say “before Abraham was, I am”. All else is a striving after some one or some thing out there. Maybe this should focus the mind of Christians on what their message should be to the world in which they live, and avoid disputes on that which is not at the center of their faith. Rabbi Boteach raises an interesting issue, and in one sense he is right. For Christians, it is an obligation to live as much as possible, at peace with all men. Christians have not always tried to avoid conflict and seem at times almost to thrive on it, but that is clearly not the way of Christ. However, at its heart, the Gospel of Jesus is as he put it: “I am the way” and “no one comes to the Father except by me”, that is exclusionary, and some might call intollerant, and I suppose it is. So the basis of Christianity is that Christ is the only way, and for that Christians have and will come into conflict. One of the problems that has always got Christians into trouble is that because they owe allegance to a power above the Kingdoms of this world, there comes a point where they will certainly have trouble in a dictatorship, and maybe under any poitical system. At some point, they will not bow to the worlds power, and dictators in particualar cannot stand that. That was also seen in Old Testament religion where the three men in the book of Daniel would not bow to the earthly king, for them, ultimately power was with God; and all else had to fall in place around that commitment.

The interesting thing is that if a person has not come to a knowledge of Jesus, there is a sense in which Rabbi Boteach is right. Why is one religeon more right than another. Can there be any final authority, unless that authority is from one who is from God, one can say “before Abraham was, I am”. All else is a striving after some one or some thing out there. Maybe this should focus the mind of Christians on what their message should be to the world in which they live, and avoid disputes on that which is not at the center of their faith.

]]>