Bud, I loved the comment. Jesus challenged people to think in new ways, to change the way they see the world and themselves in it. I completely agree. What's more, I think you encapsulated the bigger notion - the evolution of human consciousness. This is it exactly, and to my thinking it's one of the reasons Jesus did his thing.

Rick - Well, you see my point, so I appreciate that. You're not buying it, but as I said a few posts ago, I'm not trying to sell anything here, so that's OK. I'm obviously not doing a good job of articulating this. It's not about leaving what's wrong and running across the street to what's right. It's about evolving, changing, expanding. I think that's the key point where we are not connecting. Don't give up on me - I'm still sorting out how to talk about all this. The Church of What's Evolving Now isn't going to usher in the Kingdom of God. (Mainly because it's already here, but I digress.) It simply moves us along the path a few more inches. Your comment about the religion about Jesus being the thing that brings us the religion of Jesus is an interesting one. I'm grateful that I was brought up in the ABOUT religion... it's the reason that I'm still here, looking for more. In one sense I think you're right, in that the path to the OF religion goes through the ABOUT one, at least for those of us who came that route. We include the things that are still helpful, and transcend the rest. The problem lies in the fact that one of the key tenets of the First Church of ABOUT is that it believes it has cornered the market on ultimate truth, and everyone else is in error. Any question to the contrary indicates a lack of faith, a falling away, or something that is just plain wrong. Because of that, many who are pursuing the OF side of things necessarily undergo some kind of a break with the ABOUT crowd, which can produce discussions like this. I wish that wasn't so. Like I said, I ain't selling, but there's a couple of thoughts.

Rick: You have to answer that question for yourself, but I can help you do that: 1. Get a red letter Bible 2. Read the red letters 3. Next Sunday go to a typical North American church and see if they teach you how to put the red letters into practice 4. If they don't--and most do not--then there's your answer

Glad to hear it Phl, thanks for letting me know. Peace.

That's OK Rick. As I implied a few posts ago, I'm not asking you to buy into anything. As for the "tangibles", the best I can offer is the thoughts that seep out on this bog as the journey continues. I'll understand if that is not concrete enough for you.

Rick my friend, I think you missed the "include" part of "include and transcend." But, as always, I appreciate the concern.

Marty - Thanks so much for those beautiful thoughts... I'm very glad you're part of the conversation.

Rick, as I've said to you before--and I hope you know I'm sincere in this--I appreciate your concern. I appreciate this comment as well because the words you have carefully chosen have made it easier for me to know how to respond. The overarching theme which I have been trying for some time to communicate here is that I am now embracing an evolutionary worldview. Everything changes, all the time. Everything is in process. The challenge and the fascination for me has been in applying that to my own faith. I can see how to some it could appear that I may be "embracing the unknown at the expense of the known" but in fact what I am doing is exploring what comes next. One of the central tenets of such a worldview is to include and transcend. I am incredibly grateful for where I have been, how I was raised, what I believed, etc. Now those things need to be reviewed somewhat critically. As I learn and grow, what still makes sense? What is helpful? Most importantly (yes, I said "most") what is proving itself through my own experience? Those I include. Other beliefs I transcend. That's an important word. I don't reject them them, I don't dismiss them. In fact, I celebrate them as being helpful for a certain part of my journey, then I move on. This is a very important distinction. The way I see it there are at least two forces at play here - mystery and change. The first part is easy... That's the stuff we don't know. I do appreciate that Catholic theology makes a lot of room for this. Richard Rohr (a Franciscan) and Pierre Tielhard de Chardin (the late Jesuit anthropologist) are two of my biggest influences these days. Granted they'll never be mistaken for good conservative Catholics, but hey, they're Catholic nonetheless! Change is a little harder to nail down; this is where evolution comes in. As I've described above, the "transcend" act may require me to leave behind certain thoughts and beliefs. It may also result in moving some things I once thought I knew back over to the mystery side of the ledger. A final word on critical thinking. I used to have a real problem with this important skill. I'd come to respect someone's thinking and soak it all up. Inevitably if I kept listening and reading long enough I'm come across something that didn't quite resonate, or with which I completely disagreed. I'd end up profoundly disappointed and feel like I needed to throw out everything I had learned from that person. Now I firmly believe I can learn from absolutely anyone. I also believe we are all flawed, so if we look long enough we'll find a reason to reject anyone's thinking. Again, thanks for the thoughtful comment. I'm not sure it will do anything to alleviate your concerns, but this process of responding has been very helpful for me.

Jesus as the visible image of the invisible God - I think you and I are in agreement with Paul on that. Where I think we might slip into error, if not outright blasphemy, would be assume that Jesus is a perfect and complete image of God. What we see in Jesus we can assume to be reflective of God's "character", to use an anthropomorphic term for a moment. But that's not all of God. There are bound to be significant differences between the Man from Galilee and the Creator of the Everything. I find that knowledge -- that I don't really know -- very liberating. And as Watts points out, that's a truly "faithful" position.

Rick, I know, It's incredible, isn't it, the way the Divine can sometimes used flawed human beings to communicate with the rest of us. Imagine! And as to your comments about what Watts said, well... you haven't made any. Here's an exercise in intellectual honesty for you. Read them again and cover up his name. Pretend someone else said those words. Better yet, do whatever it is you do when you read from the Biblical writers who failed to meet your moral expectations, like Paul the religious contract killer, like David the adulterous murder, etc. Those guys. Then come back and tell us your thoughts on the actual content of the post. Thanks.

Erin, that's a great analogy, thanks. I had a glimpse of another image from the Victorian era as well as I read your comment - like butterflies under glass.

Learning to see, and learning to be. Huge.

Welcome to the conversation, good Irreverend! I not familiar with Andrew Harvey but I'll check him out. It's funny... Before I dialed into the evolution of consciousness thing I never had much use for the doom and gloom crowd. I still think there's a lot of crying wolf going on. And yet. And yet I can't deny that humanity seems to be unwilling to evolve voluntarily. At each stage it takes a crisis to bump us up the spiral. And as I've been saying, the magnitude and scope of our crises are on the rise too. "World killer" is not a term I throw around lightly. One wonders. Additionally, it may not be that the next crisis is coming. We may already be in the midst of it and just aren't smart enough to know it. Thanks for the comment.

Erin, I totally agree. Leaves me wondering where Jesus would be found flipping tables today. J - As always, a thoughtful comment. I'm drawn to your last line, and would simply add that between following him and eventually seeing like him is where the work lies.

Good points people. Erin, I definitely do think we're oriented toward love, but we must eventually act on that default setting. I have a visceral reaction to anything that smacks of "God's not finished with me yet" passivity - not that I think that's what you're saying J. We may (or may not) be oriented to developing some habit too, but it ain't going to happen unless we actually do the work. I guess thats where I'm at these days. I'm not afraid to identify something that has the appearance of linearity, and I'm also not afraid to use the word "work", which became a bad word in evangelicalism. Loving people takes work. It takes practice. That's where these amazing neuroscience discoveries come into play. Thats's where our behaviour changing our attitudes (instead of the other way around) comes into play. Loving this conversation, BTW.