lil' theology for ya-ya right
wow-so this week has been rather crazy from the bug jar to hockey to random good movies....I just don't have time to update this thing because I sleep untill I leave the house and I am to tired when I come home---so if this is a little jumbbled its because I'm mad tired and have to get up for soundcheck at 8 tomorrow. So I decided that anytime I am miserable I can blame it on someone named Kevin, take your pick.
So tonight I had a conversation with a friend that seems to be a common conversation in my life recently. I tend to have this common theme of talking with people about Christianity and what makes people be okay to enter heaven. Jesus says "I am the way the truth and the light-no one comes to the father but through me" but what about all the good people-are they just damed while others can say a simple prayer and be forgiven?
I grew up in a Christian home which is probably the major reason I am still a Christian what if I had grown up in a Muslim household. I believe the bible is Gods word thats why I believe the Buddhists are wrong---but they believe what they believe full on as well. I dunno-- I don't want to believe in a God that damns these people but I think I have been taught that thats what needs to happen.
What draws the line--who gets in? Is it as simple as saying I believe in Jesus? What about the person that says they do but beats there kids while the Muslim lives and upright modest life trying to follow Allah?
There is a really really interesting article that I would encourage anyone to read here
I was trying to find some lyrics to a CD I have been listening a lot to. The song is called Beauty Shines off of The Corner Of An Unlit World by Jesse Sprinkle. I can't find the lyrics. Its a great CD-buy it.
anyway-one of the lines is "we live and die on the fuller side of Grace and beauty shines in the back of all you know". Now I have to be careful here because I know Jesse and I don't want to put words or meaning behind what he says but I'm going to do a little cultural observation with what my world view brings to the table.
I just have to wonder if thats true-if grace is what makes this whole thing work but we can't understand it all. There is all this stuff with Plato and "The Beautiful" that I'm not going to try to explain because my grasp on it is shady enough. But gosh--Gods beauty backs everything we know because we can't be separated from his good because we are his creation but because of original sin we have to live in grace.
Sorry if that was way off in left field I'm tired and an ornament just scared the crap out of me because it fell off the tree.
posted by Kerry at 10:48 PM
2 Comments:
Hey Kerry, first I think I need to apologize for never reading your blog when I said I would. I have to say I really appreciated what you wrote on the 23. There's a lot of honesty in your writing, and you're not afraid to question the things that don't make sense, and indeed sometimes Christianity and God don't make sense. Those are the times where the simple faith in God's goodness take over when reason and logic seem to fail me.
You raise some good questions. Ones I have asked myself at times. Why was I born in America and blessed with a Christian family? Why was I not born in some third world country without flowing water or shoes? What really amazed me was that I realized the fact that mine and your life are not just a result of our own decisions, but the decisions and lives of those who came before us. Your parents made a choice to raise you in a certain place in a certain way, they didn't have to, it was because of love, for the Lord, for each other, for you. And I believe that love is the only thing that can get anyone into the kingdom of heaven. Your love for others, for your friends, for neighbors, for strangers will be the difference between heaven and hell for some because you made a choice to live and love as God loves. His person is communicated through us to others, and that is their only hope.
Salvation is the result of a choice, and not just your choice, but the line of believers who have influenced you and poured themselves into you. Each and every person that has influenced you as a believer; every sermon, book, cd, magazine, movie, drama; every kind act, every loving word, had a choice behind it to act in God's love. The scary thing is, that choice now falls to you to be the next link in the chain that will develop the hearts and minds of the next generation of Christians, just as those who came before you did their part.
11:27 PM
Word.
it's the grace and beauty that pulls me back to belief (and hope) in God and the lives he made for us. I have no clue whether or not those who never had a chance to hear the Christian take on God can find salvation--but God is Himself before he is the Christian take on God, and after the Christian take on God has become rubble He will still be God. Maybe they can live in his grace too--maybe they see it in sunrises, and each other, and in Christ they encounter every day. Maybe they can be saved without our flawed theology. Maybe we are saved by grace, with a little bit of faith or hope, by God and not our actions or our choices or our wisdom.
hmmm. it's past midnight, so I stop blabbing. it deserves a little coffee sometime.
9:12 PM
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