'Gpd is Not a Christian .....'

I found the following on Huffington Post. I completely agree on Tutu's point on the accidents of birth and geography. Why then are some so righteous in their faith?

The following is excerpted from the Archbishop Desmond Tutu's new book, 'God Is Not A Christian: And Other Provocations.'

This talk also comes from a forum in Britain, where Tutu addressed leaders of different faiths during a mission to the city of Birmingham in 1989.

They tell the story of a drunk who crossed the street and accosted a pedestrian, asking him, "I shay, which ish the other shide of the shtreet?" The pedestrian, somewhat nonplussed, replied, "That side, of course!" The drunk said, "Shtrange. When I wash on that shide, they shaid it wash thish shide." Where the other side of the street is depends on where we are. Our perspective differs with our context, the things that have helped to form us; and religion is one of the most potent of these formative influences, helping to determine how and what we apprehend of reality and how we operate in our own specific context.

My first point seems overwhelmingly simple: that the accidents of birth and geography determine to a very large extent to what faith we belong. The chances are very great that if you were born in Pakistan you are a Muslim, or a Hindu if you happened to be born in India, or a Shintoist if it is Japan, and a Christian if you were born in Italy. I don't know what significant fact can be drawn from this -- perhaps that we should not succumb too easily to the temptation to exclusiveness and dogmatic claims to a monopoly of the truth of our particular faith. You could so easily have been an adherent of the faith that you are now denigrating, but for the fact that you were born here rather than there.

My second point is this: not to insult the adherents of other faiths by suggesting, as sometimes has happened, that for instance when you are a Christian the adherents of other faiths are really Christians without knowing it. We must acknowledge them for who they are in all their integrity, with their conscientiously held beliefs; we must welcome them and respect them as who they are and walk reverently on what is their holy ground, taking off our shoes, metaphorically and literally. We must hold to our particular and peculiar beliefs tenaciously, not pretending that all religions are the same, for they are patently not the same. We must be ready to learn from one another, not claiming that we alone possess all truth and that somehow we have a corner on God.

We should in humility and joyfulness acknowledge that the supernatural and divine reality we all worship in some form or other transcends all our particular categories of thought and imagining, and that because the divine -- however named, however apprehended or conceived -- is infinite and we are forever finite, we shall never comprehend the divine completely. So we should seek to share all insights we can and be ready to learn, for instance, from the techniques of the spiritual life that are available in religions other than our own. It is interesting that most religions have a transcendent reference point, a mysterium tremendum, that comes to be known by deigning to reveal itself, himself, herself, to humanity; that the transcendent reality is compassionate and concerned; that human beings are creatures of this supreme, supra mundane reality in some way, with a high destiny that hopes for an everlasting life lived in close association with the divine, either as absorbed without distinction between creature and creator, between the divine and human, or in a wonderful intimacy which still retains the distinctions between these two orders of reality.

When we read the classics of the various religions in matters of prayer, meditation, and mysticism, we find substantial convergence, and that is something to rejoice at. We have enough that conspires to separate us; let us celebrate that which unites us, that which we share in common.

Surely it is good to know that God (in the Christian tradition) created us all (not just Christians) in his image, thus investing us all with infinite worth, and that it was with all humankind that God entered into a covenant relationship, depicted in the covenant with Noah when God promised he would not destroy his creation again with water. Surely we can rejoice that the eternal word, the Logos of God, enlightens everyone -- not just Christians, but everyone who comes into the world; that what we call the Spirit of God is not a Christian preserve, for the Spirit of God existed long before there were Christians, inspiring and nurturing women and men in the ways of holiness, bringing them to fruition, bringing to fruition what was best in all. We do scant justice and honor to our God if we want, for instance, to deny that Mahatma Gandhi was a truly great soul, a holy man who walked closely with God. Our God would be too small if he was not also the God of Gandhi: if God is one, as we believe, then he is the only God of all his people, whether they acknowledge him as such or not. God does not need us to protect him. Many of us perhaps need to have our notion of God deepened and expanded. It is often said, half in jest, that God created man in his own image and man has returned the compliment, saddling God with his own narrow prejudices and exclusivity, foibles and temperamental quirks. God remains God, whether God has worshippers or not.

This mission in Birmingham to which I have been invited is a Christian celebration, and we will make our claims for Christ as unique and as the Savior of the world, hoping that we will live out our beliefs in such a way that they help to commend our faith effectively. Our conduct far too often contradicts our profession, however. We are supposed to proclaim the God of love, but we have been guilty as Christians of sowing hatred and suspicion; we commend the one whom we call the Prince of Peace, and yet as Christians we have fought more wars than we care to remember. We have claimed to be a fellowship of compassion and caring and sharing, but as Christians we often sanctify sociopolitical systems that belie this, where the rich grow ever richer and the poor grow ever poorer, where we seem to sanctify a furious competitiveness, ruthless as can only be appropriate to the jungle.

Growing old

I have a good friend whose father is 102 years old. I had dinner with him Saturday night. He is still mobile, able to get around with a walker and he has more moments of lucidity than confusion.

But honestly, I hope I never grow that old. Why does God allow someone to grow this old, this feeble, this vulnerable?

If you believe that in all life there is purposefulness, that God has some intent for us, then what is the purpose of this old, old man slowly shuffling through every day? Is he teaching something to people around him? Does he have things yet to learn? Is he bearing witness to something yet unseen? All questions with no answers. Only God knows.

If it were my choice, I wouldn't ever grow that old.

Credulity

defining credulity: tendency to believe readily

I'm reading an article from Salon called "Manufacturing Belief." It opens this way:

In Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass," Alice tells the White Queen that she cannot believe in impossible things. But the Queen says Alice simply hasn't had enough practice. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." That human penchant for belief -- or perhaps gullibility -- is what inspired biologist Lewis Wolpert to write a book about the evolutionary origins of belief called "Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast."

As a spiritual person, is credulity an advantage .... or a disadvantage?

From RLP

Real Live Preacher is a blog that I read on a regular basis. I can usually count on that RLP will speak to spiritual matters, in one form or another.

Several days ago, I found this posting and feel compelled to excerpt part of it. This captures for me some of the mystery and the poetry and the enigmatic qualities of seeking God:

Some Questions ...

Is the earth ancient and are you a young child, wandering her surface and running your small hands over the bumps and buckled plates of her wisdom? Or are you the old one, tired and cynical and wise, trying to recapture your innocence by walking barefoot and kissing the feet of a newborn morning?

Is goodness somewhere deep in your heart, laid in before the ages and waiting for the year of jubilee? Or is goodness a damsel locked in a distant tower, and you the prince charming who will redeem her at any price?

Are you dragging store-bought values behind you on a little string, smiling like a rube and looking for applause from the masses? Or do you listen to the mysterious voice that lives in the low places beneath your heart? Will you proclaim those words in public, or don't you have the courage?

Can God be jerked out of the heavens and thrown to the ground? Will you leer at her there and run your clumsy hands over her body? Will you brag to your friends later that you’ve known God? Or is God the ultimate seductress, unmoved by our adolescent advances, laughing at our wanton desire and sitting, legs crossed, just outside the orbit of our highest thoughts?

And if you do meet God on the way, how will you stand?

Will you stand frightened and cowed, mired in ancient dogma that binds your feet like sheets in a dream? Or will you laugh in the face of God, smirking and superior? Will you cleave instead to the cyborg beauty, the sacred science you have set apart and called your own?

Or perhaps, having tried all of these things, you will cast off your clothing and stand naked before the horizon, watching God flutter away like a butterfly, soaring beyond all words, swooping east and west to gather all mystics and cynics into the delight of her bosom.

Who are you?

Where are you?

What are you, and what do you intend?

Tell me, for you intrigue me, and I would know you like a father or a brother or a lover or a friend.