Protestantism has been divisive from its founding by Luther. It is divise because rather than teaching to love each other, right relations, it is founded on “right belief” as expressed in a selection they make from one of the letters of Paul, “Saved by faith and not by works lest any man should boast.” Nonetheless, one cannot arrive at “right belief,” “right reading,” or “right interpretation” the reason, without reason: does the passage as read make sense? Use of reason, while denying it, invites insidious results, hence the multitudinous divisions within Protestantism immediately following its establishment, and continuing yet to this day.
It is NOT my intention to destroy the faith of anyone. It is my intention to stretch and strengthen my own inclusive faith in this endeavor, and to encourage and to build up the faith of all. It is that same God who is revealed throughout the world to all peoples, of many different names or of no name at all. For me, one response to God is awe. Stephen Hawking, the famous physicist and cosmetologist, urged, ““Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do…don’t just give up.”
Reason and faith do not conflict. Joseph Campbell states in Power of Myth,
Science is breaking through now into the mystery dimensions. It’s pushed itself into the sphere the myths he is talking about. It’s coming to the edge.… The edge, the interface between what can be known and what is never to be discovered because it is a mystery that transcends all human research.
That’s the reason we speak of the divine. There is a transcendent energy source. When the physicist observes subatomic particles, he is seeing a trace on the screen. These traces come and go, come and go, and we come and go, and all of life comes and goes. That energy is the informing energy of all things. Mythic worship is addressed to that.
I particularly am inspired by the first verse of the Tao, as quoted by Dr. Wayne Dyer’s book, Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom Tao. The Tao might be “my Higher Power” or “Yahweh,” “the Ground of All Being,” and other imaginative terms common to Muslims, Buddhists, Hindu, many tribal or local religious groups, or “the beyond self” for self – proclaimed agnostics or atheists.
1st Verse
The Tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
But The name that can be named
is not the eternal name.
The Tao is both named and unnamed.
As nameless it is the origin of all things;
as named it is the Mother of 10,000 things.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery;
ever desiring, one sees only manifestations,
And the mystery itself is the doorway to all understanding.
We are truly one: I in Thee, Thee in me, each of us reflecting the image of the Divine, the Transcendent and the Supremely Personal. Let us join hands and together travel, each in the name of his or her God as “God” is revealed to each.
The divine, the transcendent is revealed throughout the world.
Would you please share your own faith story?
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