Looking for God

by Johnny A. Ramirez

Over at kgrp, a blog by a La Sierra University honors alum, you can journey with Kimi Puen as she asks the following-

so… there’s so many thoughts that i’ve been writing down and that have been on my mind lately, but i think it all boils down to this:

what type of relationship am I -supposed- to have with God?

i’ve been working on my definition of everything else, such as:

• what role does attending church play in my relationship with God? (is it really that important to sit in a room for an hour to have my relationship with God grow?)

Read the post in its entirety- Looking for God. 

Read more of her posts on her religious walk.

There are a good number of our sons and daughters, bright and intelligent graduates of our Seventh-day Adventist colleges and universities, who question their faith, their walk with God and their relationship to our denomination.  Our families and church have invested care, time and money into their rearing and education.  If Adventism is unique in providing its members with a full-service society, then how well are we doing at equipping our children for life outside of the bubble? Many feel that we could do better in meeting the spiritual/ religious needs of current students and recent graduates as they encounter a world different than the one they grew up in.

I'm of the mind that what is needed isn't an answer to be delivered but rather for many of our recent graduates their faith is in process- I am glad that Kimi is sharing with us via her blog and I invite you to join with me in listening to her, and our other young people who open themselves up via their blogs, as she asks these questions. 

Happy Sabbath!

Comments

[Elaine]

Asking this question: "what type of relationship am I -supposed- to have with God?" presupposes there is any one "correct" relationship.

Isn't it like marriage? Each partner decides and chooses how the structure of their particular marriage will be; no one outside them should define that structure.

Even the question surmises that there is a "perfect" relationship if it can only be discovered.

Question: can someone be spiritual without being religious? Will a relationship with God be developed spiritually or religiously?

Is it something that should be strived for, or worked hard to achieve? Or, is it something that is only experienced by each individual in a different manner?

How can one develop a relationship with a Supreme Being that is never seen, exchanged ideas with, touched, heard, and developed only in one's mind? Even the idea of a god is different for each individual. Some descriptions of God recorded in Scripture are too repulsive to consider even wanting such a relationship.

For someone who selectively chooses Scripture, the picture of God will be someone desired as a friend. But, is God a "friend" or the Supreme Being who is in charge of everything?

After reading the complete post, it's obvious that (s)he is not alone in wondering why all the talk of such an abstract concept.

[Bob Rigsby]

Wow! That is brilliant and sobering at the same time because it's so honest and real. In my mind, what she is doing is in real ways the highest form of "worship" -- trying to discern for oneself the "worth" of our God. Imagine; the audacity to even ASK these sorts of questions! Someone raised this wonderful mind right!!

Can you imagine??
Adventism; a SAFE place to ask all your hard questions...

But IN the asking, comes the growing...

[Darius (statrei)]

Why do we keep looking for God? I did not realise He was lost.

[Sirje]

Dare I post this?

THE LAMENT OF A BELIEVER IN EXILE by John Shelby Spong

Ah, Jesus!
Where have you gone?
When did we lose you?
Was it when we became so certain that we possesed you

That we persecuted Jews,
Excommunicated doubters,
Burned heretics,
And used violence and war to achieve conversions?
Was it when our first-century images
Collided with expanding knowledge?

Or when biblical scholars informed us that the Bible does
Not really support what we once believed?

Was it when we watched your followers distoring people
With guilt,
Fear,
Bigotry,
Intolerance
An anger?

Was it when we noticed that many who called you Lord
And who read their Bibles reularly
Also practiced slavaery,
Defended segregation,
Approved lynching,
Abused children,
Diminished women,
And hated homosexuals?

Was it when we finally realized
That the Jesus who promised abundant life
Could not be the source of self-hatred,
Or one who encourages us to grovel
In life-destroying penitence?

Was it when it dawned on us that serving you would require
The surrender of those security-building prejudices
That masquerade as our sweet sickensses?

We still yearn for you, Jesus, but we no longer know where
To seek your presence.

Do we look for you in those churches
That so fear controversy that they make "unity" a god,
And stand for so little that they died of boredom?

Can you ever be found in those churches that have
Rejected the powerless and the marginalized,
The lepers and the Samaritans of our day,
Those you called our brothers and sisters?

Or must we now look for you outside ecclesiastical settings,
Where love and kindness expect no reward,
Where questions are viewed as the deepest
Expressions of trust?

Is it even possible, Jesus, that we Christians are the villains
Who killed you?
Smothering you underneath literal Bibles,
Dated creeds,
Irrelevant doctrines,
And dying structures?

If these things are the sources of your disappearance, Jesus,
Will you then reemerge if these things are removed?
Will that bring resurrection?
Or were you, as some now suggest never more
Than an illusion?

By burying and distorting you were we
Simply protecting ourselves
From having to face that realization?

I still seek to possess what I believe you are, Jesus:
Access to and embodiment of
The Source of Life,
The Source of Love,
The Ground of Being,
A doorway into the mystery of holiness.

It is through that doorway that I desire to walk.
Will you meeet me there?
Will you challenge me,
Guide me,
Confront me,
Reveal your truth to me and in me?

Finally, at the end of this journey, Jesus,
Will you embrace me
Inside the ultimate reality
That I call God
In whom I live
And move
And have my being?

[Elaine]

Sirje, that was one of the moving poems I've read in a very long time. Is it in a recent book of Spong's? I have more than half a dozen of his books, but would love to find that one.

Thanks so much. It presents the depth of questions we who claim to be Christians should ask ourselves.

[Sirje]

Hi Elaine,
Yes, I was blown away by it too. It's from his latest book, JESUS FOR THE NON RELIGIOUS. I find it takes courage to read this book. Good luck.

[Elaine]

He is one of my favorite authors and speaks to us who have rejected much of Christianity as has been taught. He distills the very essence of Christianity and for those who can see beyond the prejudice of his elimination of age-old baggage, his is a vibrant and refreshing message.

[Bob Rigsby]

Sirje:

This is just not fair. I do not like Spong: he's to militant, too controversial, too ... uncomfortable.
I do not like him; he does not believe that Christ WAS divine, does not believe in the virgin birth, nor the ressurection...
No sirree Sirje: Spong does not fit my view at all...

So,
WHY does this poem so speak to me? Can't see a line I disagree with...

Can you help me reconcile these worlds Sirge?
CAN the Christ really BE this person, and STILL be divine? virgin born? resurrected?
(this is good stuff)

[Sirje]

Bob,
Some time ago I determinded to excavate the original Jesus from all the ecclesiastical trappings that burried Him. I credit the SDA paradigm for motivating this search - as the Sabbath is a throwback to original Christianity as it was a Jewish cult. A lot of what we take for granted about Christianity was determined by the church as it spread throughout the Roman empire and beyond.

My search has taken me to some very strange territory and is, at times, scary. I have read only one other book by Spong and he certainly was unsettling, at best; however ...

I have felt I needed to take myself back to the dust and grime of where Jesus, the man, lived and meet Him without the ecclesiastic additives that have surrounded Him over the centuries. I shouldn't need men in long robes or white collars - or prophets holding out heavy Bibles to tell me about Jesus. This does take me to some lonely places; but then, the woman at the well - the Roman centurian - Nicodemus - the deaf and the blind, none of them, had centuries of ecclesiastical intervention telling them who Jesus was. I felt compelled to find Him by myself. I chose to read this book because the title grabbed me and I will go anywhere with anybody who will talk to me about their faith in Jesus no matter how they challange by preconceived "truth".

[Joselito Coo]

Sirje-

Having acknowledged Spong was unsettling reading for you, this was followed by your statement saying, "however... I have felt I needed to take myself back to the dust and grime of where Jesus, the man, lived and meet Him without the ecclesiastic additives that have surrounded Him over the centuries. I shouldn't need men in long robes or white collars - or prophets holding out heavy Bibles to tell me about Jesus."

You may not consider this relevant but I'm sure you've read about the recent book and movie alleging the discovery of Jesus' family tomb. The objective of the producer and author, needless to say, is for the public to buy the book, whether or not people read it, and also see the movie. Anyhow, the Israeli archeologist who excavated the tomb back in 1980 disagrees with the book's conclusion. The consensus among scholars, and you can read part of the discussion in the Society of Biblical Literature Forum online, is that the information we have in our canonical gospels is consistent with the historical and archeological data.

Must admit I haven't read a single book by Spong. I learned though he's a retired bishop of the Episcopal diocese of Newark, NJ.

Let me suggest instead of Spong, that you go back and re-examine for yourself the earliest traditions and primary witness to Jesus in the NT. As you do, here's a description of the Scriptural data I found that may help you, as it has done to me: "The Bible is a historical artifact of a distant culture at the epicenter of salvation history." (Telford Work).

While the confession of the NT church may not exactly be in very the center of our search for the historical Jesus, they were as close to it as humanly possible.

[Raul Batista]

Bro. Coo, I concur. If one can't find Jesus inside the pages of the gospel, then the person or entity one finds through other means, is a Gnostic entity that however attractive he may appear, is probably not the real McCoy. The world is littered with alternate versions of Jesus. During the 70s there was Jesus the Superstar. In the 80s there was the Personal Jesus popularized by Depeche Mode. In the 90s there was the gay Jesus hinted at by Terrence McNally's controversial play. In the 00s, there is the ever-shifting post-modern Jesus, a Jesus who is whatever the believer wishes him to be, whenever he wishes him to be that entity.

[Sirje]

Joselito,
I am aware of the Jesus' family tomb fiasco and have no expertise to discuss it. I know that "experts" on both side have had things to say but I have no particular interest to persue that issue.

My interest in Spong's book rises out of the quest I've been on for quite some time now. It is clear from church history and Biblical scholarship that the book we call "The Word of God" didn't drop out of heaven onto Christian pulpits. A great deal of copying and editing and manipulation went into putting it together over a great deal of time. My interest began a long time ago in a Biblical literature class in an SDA college, as we studied "The Book of the Acts of God" by Wright and Fuller. Over time I have read many books on the subject and most recently have been impressed by Bart Ehrman's "Lost Christianities" and "Misquoting Jesus". Also on my list are Jack Miles' "Christ A Crisis in the Life of God" and "God: A Biography". Other books include reports on teh Dead Sea Scrolls and an interesting one, "The Jesus Papyrus" by Thiede and D'Ancona.

I do know that the Bible, as we know it today, is the product of much manipulation and some of the the commonly heald Christian creeds are the product of politically motivated councils and decisions. I have always been perplexed how we have rejected the chief motivator of these decisions, Constantine, in some areas and embraced his councils in other.

Finding the Jesus who impacted the indviduals of His day isn't going to be easy. Many layers of political and ecclesiastical motivations must be removed from the original canvas if we're going to get a clear picture.

I do believe the real power and impact of Jesus may not lie in history, per se. The Bible in question here, does say that "spiritual things are spiritually discerned" and that, I believe, by-passes the history to some degree.

[Joselito Coo]

Sirje-

Let me grant, in addition to a prior admission of not having read any of Spong's books, that of the authors/books you listed, G.E. Wright and R. Fuller's "The Book of the Acts of God" is the only one I've read, over and over again, though not for a Biblical Literature class. BL was a course I took that was offered by the English dept, not under religion, in the mission college abroad where I studied. (English is not my primary language.)

Continuing, just to make sure an earlier statement I enclosed in quotation marks has been cited accurately: "The Bible is a historical artifact whose original home is a distant culture at the epicenter of salvation-history." (From Telford Work: "Living and Active...")

The above definition of Scriptures more or less sums up what I understand by sola Scriptura. Not that we should read only the Bible for information but it's a recognition that the Bible, especially the NT, is the church's primary witness to Christ.

I understand your concern for the layers of ecclesiastical traditions that buried the historical Jesus outside of an empty tomb. I guess what the Reformers tried to do was to get beyond the councils and ecclesiastical hierarchy so they also included the priesthood of all believers. I'm in this search together with you and I'm glad you raised the questions you did. Let's hear what others have to say: especially those in charge of this blog. Don't you think your, and Elaine's, queries deserve a response from the producers of our Sabbath School Bible Study Guide?

[Sirje]

Joselito,
There can be no response from "the producers of our Sabbath School Bible Study Guide". The job of those "producers" is to maintain the status quo or they would be out of a job. ...sounds too strong? It isn't. Elaine and I have met the "producers of the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide" before and I know of what I speak.

No, open and functional dialogue needs to happen outside the Washington beltway. But back to the topic at hand...

Isn't the church's primary witness to Christ the personal witness of each of its members? We can't witness to something we have not experienced. Second and third generation Adventists do not have the same mission as did the first. We need to find that mission through a personal communion with Jesus. In order to do that, we need to meet Him where we live.