John Q. I guess this is my night for kudos, not comment. You seem to speak with more eloquence, and with greater passion when Jesus is at the front of your mind. I thoroughly enjoyed the posting.

As one who makes no claims to be anything, I have been extremely reluctant to even begin to touch this, but to chicken out at this point just isn't going to cut the mustard.

I was raised in the Christian faith, spent a lot of years there, spent a lot of years after that struggling with it. I decided that God will have to sort it out.

But my basic foundation is still that foundation - do justice, give away all you have and follow Me, feed the hungry, heal the sick, whatsoever ye do unto the least of these ye have done also unto Me. He didn't say only do it for people who believe like you do. He didn't say only help people who believe as you do.

To be NOT a Christian, or to simply claim, 'I don't know', carries serious social, professional, and often personal negative consequences in today's society. It's not just 'uncomfortable'. It makes you a target.

Because I have said, "I don't know", I have been called an atheist, a godless heathen, untrustworthy, a pagan ("burn her, she's a witch"), and basically informed that nothing I have to say is valid. I have been told that I don't understand "true Christianity", as if I had never been in a church in my life.

I agree with John Q. For my lifetime, my foundation, my reference points, will be those I learned first. But because I say "I don't know", because I will no longer make professions I am not so sure about, I will be discounted, diminished, and dehumanized. And with too many of the faith, that seems to be ok.

NanaDot I appreciate your position, and your point of view. At the risk of too narrowly categorizing myself I suppose secular humanist would be the niche that most closely fits me. I know that term drives some Christian fundamentalists nuts. I kept a lid on my theological position in the work environment. Now I am retired. With some irony I can say free at last, free at last. Hang in there.

John Q - had to walk away for a minute and cool off. I said: Your question was "why has the Church failed in its mission?" My response was an exploration of one of those possibilities, namely that if one does not profess CHRISTIANITY, the assumption by the CHURCH is that one has NO faith at all in anything. Bad logic.

You say that there are so many things that you would want to "tell me". Did it ever occur to you a) to ask why or b) that I might have some things to tell you too? Of course not. You appear to have assumed that "I don't know" means that I never knew, never studied, never questioned, or that my 'faith' is somehow lacking thru neglect.

You state: The measure of faith that we possess is only increased by nurture or diminishes from neglect.

There are more conditions of faith than diminishment or nurturence - there is also transformation, change, experience, transcendence.

I related some of the experiences that I have had at the hands of good Christians, noted the social, professional, and personal consequences of non-conformity and implicitly agreed with many of your statements as to how the Church has failed in social justice, etc.

Instead of exploring your own questions as to how the Church deals with non-members, you put the 'lack of faith' on me. You diminished my years of study and struggle by telling me that "Some people get the church and their faith confused". You demean my choice for myself, and did not bother to ask "why" - you just want to TELL me "something that can't be fully comprehended by humans", as if I have never had any experience of that something. You did exactly what I said you would do - you put the problem of the Church's failure down to my lack of faith.

The explicit issue that I did not articulate at the time, but will now, is the Church's total exclusion of non-members, and complete lack of tolerance for any one who is not them.

Nanadot,

To reciprocate the good gestures you've passed my way, I'd like to say I agree with Eric about the comment of looking at the night sky. In addition to shared humility, I believe it is a statement that you are unique, complex, and extraordinary as an individual--and the innumerable stars and the vastness of a limitless sky are the only visible things of this earth more extraordinary than you. I believe it was a compliment...

JohnQ - I do honor your point of view. The last quarter of a century, in this country, the levels of intolerance toward non-Christians have reached scarey proportions, but in fact, our greatest leaps have always been made in inter-faith leaps.

Martin Luther King learned from Ghandi as well as Jesus, Ghandi learned from Buddha and Jesus and on and on. In this country we have also the great words of Chief Seattle and Black Elk.

Inter-faith dialogue is critical, but too often, lately, non-Christians have been demonized and left out of the discussions altogether - and that has seemed to be OK with the Church in this country. At what point do we become the same kind of theocracy that we sought to escape, that we damn the Middle Eastern states for being, that we demonize the Soviets for being?

I understand the firm foundations of the 'Bible Belt'. What I don't understand is the hate toward other faiths.

NanaDot, please don't misunderstand me. When I say there are so many things that I would like to tell you I'm speaking mostly about my life's journey and how and why, I as a minister call attention to this question. For sure it doesn't sit well with the churches who think they have it all figured out. I didn't start my life out as a minister but in law enforcement. I often tell people that I had a drug problem when I was a child. Anytime that the church doors were open my mother drug me to church. To be sure when I was a teenager there were other places that I would rather have been.

I will tell you that they call me the bad boy of the Gospel. In 1994 I attended a meeting with the Bishop of The United Methodist Church and other clergy and they were talking about buying some property and building a church in an underdeveloped area outside the Lake of the Ozarks. The projected costs were somewhere around $500,000.00 at the time. When it became my time to speak I told them in my opinion that if they gave me $10,000.00 and 30 days I could have a mission church up and running in a store front in Kansas City doing real ministry, reaching out and helping people who desperately need some. Needless to say my opinion wasn't considered because the discussion went back to buying the property and building a new church. In ten years the area was projected to be developed with new subdivisions and homes and that they would be in place with a church for the people to attend. The vote wasn't unanimous but they decided to spend the money and buy the property and build the church.

First of all I feel they needed a church ministry that would be helping people now and not ten years from now. I felt that it was unfortunate that they choose to look for a future possibility and ignore a real need now in the present.

It's a fact of life, churches are businesses, they own property, hire people and also have to make a profit to be viable. People who don't fit in their social circle have a way of being passed over and efforts are spent with the emphasis of a Church that makes money and isn't a draw on the revenue of the corporate church.

Secondly, the question that I asked is my heart felt request to the corporate church to get in step with their true calling instead of the path that it is traveling.

As a feminist liberation theologists I'm uncomfortable with the corporate church and uneasy around religious people.

If you want to contact me, I'm in the book in Marshall, Mo. I'd love to send you my televangelist take of the Uptown Community Church and Plumbing Service.

Also, one of the things that I feel is appropriate for the majority of the people who are "outside" the church is the "Desiderata." In other words, you are who you are and the universe is unfolding as it should.

I'll post my response now and stop running off at the fingers.

John Q.

Maybe I got/get carried away!

Straight to the point Mr. Q!I do agree that the church has been "cold" in carrying out its mandate as outlined in the Bible. As far as belivers are concerned, they need to show their true character by words and deeds so as to accomplish their calling as Jesus intended of them.