….and again, it is not simply about goodness. Indeed, it is not about goodness at all. Jesus Christ is the one way because He is God, He took on our nature and our body, He overcame death. He invites all of us to partake in that astounding act of love and self-sacrifice not to achieve any sort of moral goodness, but to enter into life and be transformed.

Most don’t do so, choosing other doors instead (like homosexual normalcy, a life of unbridled polymorphous perversity or the simple ennui of the world). That does not invalidate who He is.

You are right though, there is no co-existence with any other way. If one is not at least comfortable with Jesus’ “only” claims, then one cannot be a Christian.

Jesus Christ is not an idea, He is a person. The Church is not the arbiter of philosophical moralism despite the attempts to make her so. She is the path to life through ontological and spiritual union with our Lord. The path through that door is open to anyone. It can be a scary and challenging path to walk. That is why so many turn away. You seem to prefer the seemingly safe road that allows you to restate the rules anytime it gets a bit uncomfortable all the while blissfully unaware of the bleeding of your soul and the slide into nothingness that you are courting. Don’t look to institutions, existential horrors or hypocrisy. Look to the lives of the saints. There are many contemporary ones, Orthodox and Catholic.

David Bentley Hart, in concert with the Fathers of the Church puts it quite eloquently: Christ or nothing.

M. Stankovich’s understanding of that is probably the one thing that enables him to do what he does. I can’t figure out any other reason. Stankovich and I have butted heads here and other places but I’d much rather walk the narrow road with him even in contention than the wide and warm fuzzy road you profess.

Mr. Bradshaw,

For what it’s worth, when certain people (I admit not all) say things as, “There is but one way.”, it is not because they believe they have “found” it. On the contrary, it (or rather He) has found them. For many (again, not all) this is not a triumphal statement, for they would be the first to admit that He who is the Way is still very much in the process of conforming them into His likeness.

MS writes: “You’ve known me long enough to know my patients are murderers, serial child sexual predators, and people who torture other human beings for pleasure”

Actually, I had no idea. That sounds like a grim job, and I’d probably resort to drinking if I had to deal with those sort of personalities on a daily basis. I just prefer to pretend such people don’t exist outside of tv. I was also not implying that you, personally, were untrustworthy.

“There is but one way.”

Perhaps, and I don’t doubt you believe you’ve found the door. Unfortunately, my overexposure to similar but mutually exclusive claims from across the religious spectrum make picking one rather difficult. I spent a number of years deeply immersed in Catholicism. Once I came to the conclusion (realization?) that the Church, for all its greatness, was not infallible and that it had even facilitated great crimes, I had to wonder why any other “path” was going to be any better.

This doesn’t mean I think one can simply throw up one’s hands and do whatever one wishes. I’m only suggesting that one can only follow their path to “goodness” as they discern it to be. What else can one do? Reject one’s own conscience in favor of someone else’s merely because that person is a cleric or happens to have a popular television following?

Well, that’s probably due to my own limitations. However, it is my experience that to a vast majority of those who adhere to the religion of the SELF, Theosis does indeed sound like an eastern “negation”. It is a common complaint, and one I pondered about myself as a catechumen many moons ago. However, in the end, I think it is the limitations of the perspective of the SELF and not something inherent in Christian theology. As I said before, the SELF is a jealous God…

Mr. Bradshaw,

You’ve known me long enough to know my patients are murderers, serial child sexual predators, and people who torture other human beings for pleasure. You would dismiss me with this “speaking as God,” and “wanting your money or worse?” You’re not in my league. Let’s try this again.

I read your comment that opens this thread and you fit the description of Santana’s (the UCLA Ph.D., not Carlos) marvelous exposition of the fabled Mexican Trixter. You are selling a subtle, non-offensive, fat-free, cholesterol-free, environmentally-friendly, energy-saving “morality” – celebrity endorsed – without all the commitment, intrusive accountability, and chastity. Hell, yeah! It is a “guilt-free” Orthodoxy because you can define yourself and all the parameters that constitute the appearance of “normalcy.” I, the hapless and impotent change-purse of God cry, “Fraud, Mr. Bradshaw!” to which you respond, “I don’t know what you’re getting at.” Round and round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel… Let me put it another way, “What has light to do with darkness?” (2Cor 6:14). And understanding this, the Church itself – appreciating its own sinners, its own responsibility for the evil that “Christians” perpetrate upon the earth – at the very beginning of Holy Week appoints the reading of the most scathing indictment of the Lord against the elders of the Temple (Matt, 23:1-37), where He cries aloud, “How can you escape the damnation of hell?” (v.33)

The fact of the matter, Mr. Bradshaw is that “He that enters not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber,” (Jn. 10:1) and the Lord says:

I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief comes not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

There simply is no “parallel-morality,” “mirrored-morality,” or “comparable-morality.” There is but one way.

In the end, Mr. Bradshaw, you certainly know what I’m getting at. I don’t know if you are purposely being provocative to invoke argument, draw attention to yourself, troll, offend, or mock fools. It’s none of my business because it’s not my blog. Neither do I judge you as your word clearly speak for themselves. Nevertheless, I am saddened by your remarks and how infrequently you are truly confronted for your errors.

Christopher, I’m sufficiently well-read in Christian theology, and your comments sound foreign.

Christian saints and mystics like Teresa of Avila talk about the transformation of the self and the personality so that it is directed towards what God wills. You make it sound as if the entirety of the self is obliterated so that there’s nothing but a void or completely negation of the “I”. That’s actually the Buddhist “nirvana” where the self simply disappears.

Just saying …

The “individual” versus the “corporate”, or in this case the “marketplace” (i.e. “… a person acting on behalf of a commercial, legal entity as an employee who is facilitating a transaction… “) dichotomy has a history behind it, having it’s start in the protestant revolution where the interior, rational, intellectual mind of man was giving precedence over the corporate (life understood “in community”), traditional, and the hierarchy of Saints who knew better than the individual (at least until they were a Saint). By prioritizing (and eventually making a God out of) the SELF the protestant revolution destroyed not only the traditional way of living (in the Church, and out of it in the “secular”) but eventually itself as well.

I say all this to simply highlight the fact that Traditional Christians (and most any non-modern philosophy) don’t accept the terms of your argument, that “liberty” of any kind is radically limited by the marketplace. Thus, I don’t some how leave who I am, which includes my Faith, somewhere else (behind? at home?) when I enter the marketplace and make a “transaction”. The fact that Modernism wants this, is simply an indication of its fanatical and evangelical character – it is bold enough to try to claim “the marketplace” as its own sacred ground where its own understanding prevails.

As far as God, as long as you insist characterizing Him in the same way you characterize the SELF, well, of course your reasoning is going to circle back around to it’s own SELF understanding. That’s the closed loop your in, and that’s why God seems to you to be no more than a hamster on a wheel (that is after all, all the SELF is). Look at the language of the SELF you employ: “God’s feelings“, “You’re in if for you, too”, “We are all self-involved”, and the utilitarian understanding of morality. Some day, a bit of enchantmentwill shine through, something from the OUTSIDE will appear incongruously in the closed loop. Be on the look out for it…

Christopher, a person acting on behalf of a commercial, legal entity as an employee who is facilitating a transaction does not have the same religious freedoms they do as an individual.

Example:
Abercrombie & Fitch can require their employees to abide by a dress code and does not have to accommodate Muslim girls who wish to wear a hijab.

“Your first sentence contains a clue as to how we got to the place where religious liberty simply does not matter: “individual”

Yes, your religious liberty as an individual. What other type of liberty do you want? How many people are you?

“Christianly, we humans are not truly free (being “slaves to sin”, sin best understood as existential nothingness here) until our will is FREELY aligned with the Divine Will.”

And why do you want that? Because you care about God’s feelings? No. If He decided to throw you in Hell despite all of your good efforts, I’m doubting you’d be as concerned about His will. Your aim is for your own sanctification and salvation and ultimate happiness. You’re in it for you, too.

We are all self-involved to varying degrees. Nevertheless, anyone who isn’t a sociopath understands that one’s needs and wants cannot be the sole arbiter of what one does. We don’t need religion to tell us this, and those who are sociopaths aren’t going to “get it” whether they find religion or not.

…Implied in your statement is what? That I’m incapable of empathy, self sacrifice or restraint?….”

Oh, no, quite the opposite. Indeed, within Epicureanism (if not quite to the same extant in its Modern form) is found an ascetic necessity, a self restraint that is part of the enjoyment and worship of the SELF. look it up…

Even were it true (it’s not), how does religion mitigate this narcissism of the soul?

Well, “religion” as such does not – as modernism (which is a religion – one that you admit you hold) God is the SELF. However, to speak to your question Christianly, the answer is rather obvious: “Thy will be done”. Christianly, we humans are not truly free (being “slaves to sin”, sin best understood as existential nothingness here) until our will is FREELY aligned with the Divine Will. Thus, the only thing left to be done is to turn away from narcissism (which, actually, is not part of our nature – thus we are truly free to be free of the sorrowful SELF). This is almost impossible for you to understand however as you don’t recognize “The Other”, as you still believe “The Other” is merely a reflection (as in a pool of water) of the SELF.

it seems clear from the evidence that belief in a God in no way guarantees one won’t seek to justify anything one does.

I would even bolster this statement, I would say that belief in GOD (not “a” God) in no way guarantees “one won’t seek to justify anything one does.”. Every Saint (for example, St. Paul says as much in several different ways) understands this. All this really affirms is that yes, we are sinners, and what we do/think/believe is almost the definition of powerlessness. The question then becomes, what does GOD (not “a” God) do about this?

In fact, once someone’s convinced God IS on their side, they usually become capable of any atrocity. After all, how do you convince them otherwise? As “the enemy”, it can’t be done.

Well, your being polemical again. I would suggest to you that this is a sort of defense mechanism of your philosophy, something that is reflexively and unconsciously done like when you scratch an itch. Christianly, I would agree, as does St. Paul and every Saint since. Christ Himself was always at odds with those who thought God is “on their side” – indeed, it was they who demanded Pilate kill Him.

That said, your understanding of this is again straight from the Modernism Bible: If GOD=”a” God=a created psychological artifact of the organic brain, and thus a reflection of the narcissistic SELF, then of course GOD is simply more of the same SELF. What can break through such a closed loop? Is reality really thus?

Christopher, you know nothing about me. Implied in your statement is what? That I’m incapable of empathy, self sacrifice or restraint?

Even were it true (it’s not), how does religion mitigate this narcissism of the soul? It doesn’t. Just ask the thousands of children raped by Catholic priests who were immersed on a daily basis in these supposedly magical sacraments … or the hierarchy who shielded their rapists from any form of accountability.

The Russian Orthodox are hardly any better. Their theology, with its bizarre hypernationalism and anti Semitism, facilitated bloodshed during the time of the Black Hundreds and the Kishinev pogrom.

Look, I’m being a bit polemical.

I’m aware there are great clerics that exist. Nevertheless, it seems clear from the evidence that belief in a God in no way guarantees one won’t seek to justify anything one does.

In fact, once someone’s convinced God IS on their side, they usually become capable of any atrocity. After all, how do you convince them otherwise? As “the enemy”, it can’t be done.

James,

I am not sure what you mean by your second sentence. Your first sentence contains a clue as to how we got to the place where religious liberty simply does not matter: “individual”. Ironic, when you think about it, as Modernism in most of its forms (e.g. marxism/dialectical materialism, “social justice”, “non-discrimination”, etc.) is always talking about “community”, not that Modernism truly understands the word…

I’ve never claimed to speak for God. That would be you.

This is one of those presuppositions that Modernists hold that is so obviously untrue, yet so often repeated and so large in the zeitgeist that it is rarely questioned. How can it be, it is simply part of the air modernists breath, and thus it is really difficult for them (maybe even impossible given the terms of their self-belief) to gain the intellectual/perceptual distance they need to look at the very ground they are standing on.

One of the central doctrines of Modernists is their self described agnosticism, or more to the point their supposedly limited epistemology. When any non-modern (whether it be a Christian or some other belief) says to the Modern (as we so often do) “you do have a God, and he/she/it is the Self” the modern has a built in defense mechanism – namely, his false epistemology.

James, I would suggest that you begin to consider the place of the (neo-epicurean) SELF in your religion, because you do have a God, and it is even a jealous God. You speak for it all the time, and you rarely even sin against your God – Modernists are nothing if not faithful. Indeed, it is accurate to say that while Christians are rarely truly faithful to their God, Modernists are perhaps the most truly disciplined religionists/ascetics to have yet lived in human history. There are many places to start thinking about your God, but Descartes’ “I AM” is as good as any…

M Stankovich, I’m not sure what you’re getting at.

I’ve never claimed to speak for God. That would be you.

And you must forgive me, but I immediately distrust anyone who makes such a fantastic claim. They usually either want your money … or worse.

If you wish to attribute personhood to legal entities and extend to them permission to do whatever they/it wish, that’s another debate.