On another forum, I lamented that Christianity was being left behind, and as it is currently consituted, stood to collapse into irrelevance and obscurity, with none but a few dinosaur conservatives left muttering to each other in corners about how evil the world is. So, I proclaimed, the 21st century religion needs a 21st century approach. I was duly asked, what would a 21st century Christianity look like?
Here is my answer:
One change I would like to see is the realisation by the church authorities that the laity, at least in the developed world, are no longer the ignorant peasants and serfs the religion was (wrongly) enlisted to control in the dark and middle ages. A recognition, maybe, that we are endowed with intellects, discriminatory powers and critical faculties because God intends for us to use them, even (perhaps especially) on scripture.
It might help if those same authorities also realised that all the various Christian schisms, denominations, sects and cults are counter-productive to spreading the Gospel in it's purest form, and sought to compromise on their doctrine and dogma with a view to burying their differences for good. How can we pretend to know truth if we cannot even agree among ourselves what it is?
Another is the necessary social progress to put women on an equal footing with men, and see them better represented in leadership roles throughout the church. An end to the institutional discrimination against homosexuals would also be good. The religion should be leading this progressive movement, not being reluctantly dragged, kicking and screaming all the way, by secular society, into the modern age.
I would like to see the religion more active around what seem to me to be the two major global issues facing humanity in our time: how to eradicate absolute poverty while still remaining comfortably within the Earth's ecological carrying capacity.
I would like to see a more inclusive religion, that encompasses the whole of humanity within it's remit, even those of other faiths and none. I would like to see it end it's insistence, for example, that one has to be a Christian to receive heavenly reward. I really think we have to decide whether we mean 'the family of man' to be a real objective to strive for, or just a trite, complacent, inaccurate description of an exclusive club of people 'who think like me'. In other words, we have to decide whether we think God, as Jesus did, to be the loving Father of all mankind, or just Christians, the born again, the elect, or some other sub group of the faith.
Finally, I would like to see the development and promotion of a philosopically rigorous, (but upgradeable in the light of new facts and discoveries and developments), world view, rather than the hotchpotch mélange of obsolete ideas and ideologies we are currently presented with.
Doubtless you can think of other improvements the religion could make. You are welcome to suggest them.
Best wishes, 2RM.
Here is my answer:
One change I would like to see is the realisation by the church authorities that the laity, at least in the developed world, are no longer the ignorant peasants and serfs the religion was (wrongly) enlisted to control in the dark and middle ages. A recognition, maybe, that we are endowed with intellects, discriminatory powers and critical faculties because God intends for us to use them, even (perhaps especially) on scripture.
It might help if those same authorities also realised that all the various Christian schisms, denominations, sects and cults are counter-productive to spreading the Gospel in it's purest form, and sought to compromise on their doctrine and dogma with a view to burying their differences for good. How can we pretend to know truth if we cannot even agree among ourselves what it is?
Another is the necessary social progress to put women on an equal footing with men, and see them better represented in leadership roles throughout the church. An end to the institutional discrimination against homosexuals would also be good. The religion should be leading this progressive movement, not being reluctantly dragged, kicking and screaming all the way, by secular society, into the modern age.
I would like to see the religion more active around what seem to me to be the two major global issues facing humanity in our time: how to eradicate absolute poverty while still remaining comfortably within the Earth's ecological carrying capacity.
I would like to see a more inclusive religion, that encompasses the whole of humanity within it's remit, even those of other faiths and none. I would like to see it end it's insistence, for example, that one has to be a Christian to receive heavenly reward. I really think we have to decide whether we mean 'the family of man' to be a real objective to strive for, or just a trite, complacent, inaccurate description of an exclusive club of people 'who think like me'. In other words, we have to decide whether we think God, as Jesus did, to be the loving Father of all mankind, or just Christians, the born again, the elect, or some other sub group of the faith.
Finally, I would like to see the development and promotion of a philosopically rigorous, (but upgradeable in the light of new facts and discoveries and developments), world view, rather than the hotchpotch mélange of obsolete ideas and ideologies we are currently presented with.
Doubtless you can think of other improvements the religion could make. You are welcome to suggest them.
Best wishes, 2RM.
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