Magic And Christianity Is there a magical formula for salvation?

[mitchellmckain 0]

I believe in magic as an alegorical representative of the invisible powers of the heart and spirit. I believe in the power of stories to reveal the unseen in symbolism and metaphor. And so it is without reservation that I can say that I believe in Santa Claus. But this does not mean that I expect to find anything on an expedition to the north pole. However, there is a kind of magical thinking, which I do not believe in at all. This magical thinking often takes the form of making deals with God (or the devil), supposing that if we do (or promise to do) certain things that we think God wants us to do, then somehow we will get what we desperately want. More generally there are all sorts of magical systems of belief that we can control our destiny by doing things that have no rational connection to the events in our life.I have begun to wonder about these Christians I have encountered that seem to believe in Christianity as some sort of magic. They interpret Genesis as a magical story in comic book style of a God creating the world by the power of command and then using powers like necromancy to animate a golem of dust called Adam and reanimate a body part and call it Eve. Do they insist that the six days in the story of creation are literal 24 hour days as part of their affirmation in the belief of the power of Christian magic? Is their refusal to accept the rationality of science a consequence of this commitment to believe in the magic of Christianity? Well what really concerns me is that I am begining to wonder if all this is connected to their understanding of Christianity as a magical formula for salvation. Do they think they are saved by their words of affirmation in a belief in Jesus as if it were a magical spell? Do they understand faith as some magical power given to them by God which gives the magical spell of savation its power? Are things like a contrite heart and repentance just ingredients in this magical formula? The reason I ask is because they seem to be proud of being Christian as if this was one of their accomplishments in life. Is Christianity just a way that they can feel like winner in life and by which they can look down with disdain at all the losers?This is not my understanding of Christianity at all. I cannot comprehend how there can be any room for self-righteousness in a Christian. We are not saved by any work or merit of our own but only by the work of God because of His undeserved love for us, which is offered to all and which all are free to accept or reject. I have heard this rational by Christians that they are proud of the Christ that is working within them. Can we really buy into this kind of double talk? If Christ is really within them then is self-righteousness the personality of Christ?"Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who morn for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil aganst you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you." Matthew 5:3-11With this in mind, I pretend to no riches of spirit; I morn for all who suffer from the evils of this world; I lord it over no one and dictate to no one what they must believe; I pretend to no righteousness of self but beg for God to fill me with His righteousness; I seek mercy for all sinners knowing that I am one of them; I endeavor to be pure and honest of heart; and above all I seek to be a peacemaker, for I would dearly love to be called a child of God. And so it is without fear that I walk down the middle of a rhetorical battlefield pointing out the stupidities of both sides knowing that I will be reviled by both sides, for that is the path of the peacemaker.It is not the Christian way to condemn people but only the behavior which cannot be accepted because every Christian KNOWS that he is a sinner and ought to be condemned as well. Therefore we do not presume upon the Grace of God to act like we are sitting pretty in His forgiveness and therefore free to condemn others for their sins. To act like you have the power to condemn is to act like you have the power to save yourself. "Do not say say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?' (that is, to bring Christ down) or 'Who will descend into the abyss?' (that is bring Christ up from the dead)." Rom 10:6-7 Only God has the power to do such things and therefore it is only God who can judge the soul of human beings. We must make judgements of right and wrong to guide our own choices and actions but people we can only judge according to the law of land and then only to commend their spirit to the care of God.We are warned, "as you judged so shall you be judged." And so if anything is blaspheming against the Holy Spirit and unforgivable, it is this: to refuse to others the mercy and forgiveness that God has given you. Is this not the meaning of the parable in Matthew 18:23 "Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began reckoning, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents; and as he could not pay his lord ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, 'Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.' And out of pity for him the lord of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But that same servant, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii and seizing him by the throat he said 'Pay what you owe.' So his fellow servant fell down and besought him, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you.' He refuse and went and put him in prison till he should pay the debt. When the servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then the lord summoned him and said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you besought me; and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?' And in anger his lord delivered him to the jailers, till he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart."And so it is that when I see Christianity turned on its head to be made into some sort of standard of righteousness by which to judge the world and lord it over everyone, that I begin to wonder if this is a magical and delusional Christianity which has nothing to do with God at all.

Edited May 7, 2007 by mitchellmckain (see edit history)

[Aniki 0]

I've always said every group has some number of *BLEEP*s, and christianity is no exception. However, I am pleased to find that you are one of the good christians! You understand that it is not your place--not anyone's place-- to judge and condemn others. There are more christians in the US than any other religion. And most of these are ignorant of even the basic things, like their ten commandments. They take their religion for granted, and if they find someone who is not the same, they go nuts, acting as if they thought christianity is the only religion in the world (and they probably do). These people make a mockery of their own religion daily, and it's pathetic.I'd say most christians have not read the bible, and a majority of those that do think of it as a chore, and don't really think about what it's saying. I'd say that, but I have only the slightest idea, and it's only an educated guess. Anyway, I'm glad to have found an example of the christian religion who is not one of these idiots.

[mitchellmckain 0]

In the reinterpretation of Christianity from a magical religion to a rational consideration of what is required for human spiritual transformation, there are some serious questions about about how we can make sense of the idea of Christ's atonement for the sins of men on the cross. At first I thought the answer was in Abelard's theory of moral influence, but the only reason was because it pointed to an impact on the human psyche rather than some magical effect of human sacrifice. But the more I looked at it the more I realized how inadequate it was. I certainly did not buy into the idea that the value of Christ's death on the cross was that of an example of obedience to God. To find my own answer to this question I had to return the the central principle of my own theology which is human free will and responsibility.Adam passed the blame for his disobedience onto God and Eve, while Eve passed the blame of her action onto Lucifer. For God to keep alive the potentiality of Adam and Eve as His children it was necessary their free will and choice be observed. Thus their choice to pass the blame and responibility to another had to be accepted in some manner. But if God accepted immediately the assignment of responsibility to Himself, this would mean 1) that according to His role as their creator mankind would simply as God had made them, without responsibility and 2) that according to God's limitless power and perfect love, mankind would suffer no consequences of their choices and so their responsibility for their choices would be nonexistent. Since that would be the end of human potentiality, God instead temporarily gave over the blame and responsibility to Lucifer. The good news was that this would be subject to Lucifer's limitations and the bad news was that with responsibility would came all the authority and power over human life as well. And thus man was delivered into the dominion of Lucifer/Satan as the "god of this world". In this way human free will remains intact (in principle) because mankind suffered the natural consequences of his choices (which is also known as the requirements of justice) under the dominion of the master he has chosen.Human beings retained personal responsibility for their lives (at least until they followed Adam's example in abdicating that responsibility by their own choices). But Adam's responsibility was lost and this was not just a responsibility for his own personal life but also a responsibility for all of mankind as his descendents. It is a fact of life that our actions have consequences not only for own life but also for everyone else (particularly for our descendants). Adam chose not to face the consequences of his own actions and deal with the harm that he had done, not only to himself but through him to all mankind. For God to set this aside in any way would commensurately erase our free will and responsibility along with our associated potential as His children.But now one of the elements of our salvation becomes the need to reclaim the responsibility, power and authority over human life from Lucifer. To this degree the ransom theory of atonement can be said to be correct, but it is not a matter of payment for property, but a matter of where the responsibility for human life resides. Lucifer has power and authority over human life only by the right of the one who bears the blame for man's choices. We can make our own choices but we cannot change the choices which our ancestors have made. So the question becomes how can this be reclaimed. The most natural way to do this would be for a human being to take the blame that Adam refused, but since all human beings were under the dominion of Lucifer this was fundamentally impossible. We needed a new Adam, but creating a new Adam would reclaim responsibility for this new Adam's descendents. So God found an even better solution in becoming the new Adam Himself. Not only was He the parent of Adam's mind, but since Adam tried to blame him for his actions, God was in a perfect postion to take the blame upon Himself.The trick here was for God to find a way for Him to accept Adam's assignment of responsibility in such a way that it would not destroy human free will. He accomplished this by becoming a man and accepting the responsibility as a man, suffering the consequences of Adams choice as a man would suffer these consequences. So Jesus, innocent in His own personal choices in life, bore all consequences of living in the evil world that Adam's choice created, but not filled with denials and excuses, running away from responsiblity as people usually do. By doing it in this way, God accepted Adam's assignment of blame as an assignment of responsibility back to man. Therefore through Christ all the original responsibility, power and authority that Adam originally had over human life could (eventually) be restored to human beings who are adopted into the lineage of Christ as the new Adam.But thus we can see that in this view, Christ's atonement is not a magical formula by which we can escape the consequences of our actions. It is not a matter of paying some restitution to a victimized God. We are the only victims here because we have victimized ourselves. We do not have to believe that God has some grudge against us that must be appeased by some act of violence (blood sacrifice) in order for Him to forgive us. As one who is not a damaged victim of our sin, God forgiveness does not require the repair of His feelings of trust or the cooling of anger as if God could not control Himself. God's forgiveness is offered with the freedom of one who loves us with out reservation or condition. The difficulty lies not in any limitations within God but lies instead in the limitation imposed by what God wants mankind to become.

Edited August 3, 2007 by mitchellmckain (see edit history)

[Chesso 0]

I am no fan of any religion, but even if yours one day turns out to be utter crap like I think it will, you sounds like you have your head on straight either way.Religions have some arseholes? if only, unless ones like the original poster are hiding from me, busy well not making a fuss over it all lol.I got ones condemming and trying to convert me and my missus both left, right and center, parents that are christian (yet have commited adultery on several occasions, smoke, drink, marijuana).....I suppose being a *sinner* can't make you unreligious, all every person on the planet would be guilty, but it has to stop somewhere right?I would consider a christian, to be someone that doesn't rave around about it, push it around to everyone, has there head tightly screwed to there shoulders, and can make decisions for themselves, and not use a book as an excuse .

[mitchellmckain 0]

Chesso and Aniki,

I just wanted you both to know that I read and appreciate your comments. I am not ignoring either of you.

Just a few thoughts,

I have noticed that many Protestants churches have been moving away from the idea of Christianity as embodied in organized religion, saying things like "it is all about Jesus" as opposed to being about what church you belong to. My affinity for this idea caused me to resent Catholic ideas that identified their church as the visible manifestation of the body of Christ and so I considered them intolerant compared to the Protestants I have been involved with. Of course, I must acknowledge that there are Protestants who are wholly fanatical about condemning the Catholic church as the anti-Christ, which is certainly an example of the worst kind of intolerance. However the Catholic church depite being a single organization with definite official policy is one whose membership displays a considerable diversity of opinion, including a group that denies that pope John Paul II was ever a legitimate pope and consider him a heretic because of his eccumenical ideas. In any case, since the churches I have been involved with have expressed a very different opinion from the anti-Catholic fanatics, considering the Catholics fully Christian and the Catholic Church to be a important part of the body of Christ, I still thought the Catholic church was a little intolerant in its attitudes, like in the recent Vatican statement that declared that all other churches were not "proper churches". But recent discoveries have caused me to revise that thinking.

A conversation made me realize that the Catholic church (at least in part) has a different conception of tolerance which the Protestants would not embrace at all, but reaches far beyond this tolerance that I was so proud of. Let me give it to you, however, in words of the Catholic to whom I was speaking.

A separate, but related issue, is the sense in which all of God's people are members of the visible Body of Christ. I think this should be considered apart from Baptism, because the mark conferred in Baptism, whether this was received in its ordinary form, or through Desire, does not indicate whether someone continues in steadfast unity with the Church. Baptism confers an indelible mark on the recipient, although this mark does not indicate whether the person is in communion with the Church, either perfectly or imperfectly. An example of the different kinds of participation of the Body of Christ was used by my priest, who compared the Church to a tree. It has different parts with their different functions, and it also bears fruit and casts shade in which some others partake. Catholics in a state of Grace are part of the tree. Protestants, Anglicans, or even pagans seeking God are connected to the tree, some more directly, some less so. Because of this, it is unwise to attempt to judge a person's final destiny. A Catholic who appears to be part of the tree might not be, while someone fairly remote may have a deep and hidden connection. Only God knows.

This is a conception of tolerance which unlike most of my fellow Protestants, I would embrace as well, but combining it with the Protestant conception of the Church or body of Christ that is not associated with any denomination but which is administered by God alone in the the persons of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.




Let me add a final comment that the Emerging Church is another step in the Protestant trend toward tearing down barriers and taking the "organized religion" out of Christianity. In the Emerging Vinyard Church which I am now attending, the pastor explained this as a transition from the closed set to the open set conception of the mission of the Christian pastor: In the old closed set idea basically you draw this circle defined by what one has to do in order to be a Christian and belong to the church and the pastor's mission is to bring people inside that circle. In the new open set conception there is no such circle and the mission of the pastor is to bring all people regardless of where they are at in understanding or spirituality closer to Jesus, as the prime example which human beings should emulate and through whom all people can come closer to God. In the open set mission of the pastor, his mission is directed at everyone, including himself, which makes no divisions between people.
Edited October 19, 2007 by mitchellmckain (see edit history)

[Chesso 0]

Are you aware that known mythological stories pre-jesus time can nearly exact the events in his story...... that kind of ummm yeah really shoots it out of the water.I can't say for absolute sure, but apparently the excuse to this day is that the devil though ahead (so basically planted these copy stories before his time).Pretty interesting, as well as a supposed gap between Jesus's time and the time of some others, where another man professing Jesus basically had no knowledge of almost everything that supposedly happened and believe any events all happened within the realm of gods, and then suddenly people are popping up with the other story..... lol.Not sure if this is on topic, but I was reading some random stuff and figured might have fun discussing little things like this.

[mitchellmckain 0]

Are you aware that known mythological stories pre-jesus time can nearly exact the events in his story...... that kind of ummm yeah really shoots it out of the water.

Yes I have heard of them, and read about the written work in which these discoveries are reported.

I can understand why you might think this is evidence in support of your conclusions (whatever they may be). I can even see why they might be an effective argument get someone who is undecided to come around to your way of thinking. But I am not sure that you understand that this report of such mythological stories has completely the opposite effect on a Christian, who sees the life (and death) of Jesus as the central event of human history and as a fulfillment of prophecy and the work of God in the manipulation of events for His purpose of redeeming mankind. Every such mythological story is just another prophecy pointing to the importance of this event.

I can't say for absolute sure, but apparently the excuse to this day is that the devil though ahead (so basically planted these copy stories before his time).

I acknowledge the existence of the devil, but I give him credit for nothing. I see the devil as being a creation of mankind by our habitual abdication of responsibility for our own evil. Adam and Eve transformed an angel of God into a parasite by blaming him for their own mistake, expecting him to carry the blaim for the existence of evil in the world. But with the blaim (responsibility) there goes power as well, and so I give to this angel Lucifer nothing (in my mind) of blaim or power.
So no I do not buy into such an explanation in any way whatsoever.




One of the problems with ancient history is that it is nearly as unknowable as the future and requires nearly as much imagination to envision. Arguing about what "actually" happened is a bit pointless, the only real usefulness of history is what we can learn from it. The lesson of history is more important than the facts.

[Chesso 0]

I'm pretty sure they can *date* materials to a degree these days (I am unsure of the accuracy), but I would think proof of these told stories would have been dated somehow before those events, throwing it around with no proof would be pretty silly, especially if you plan to debate something else using that information lol.Not to say it's iron clad, but when religious figures have been proven to not only accept the above (about the stories) and somehow bring about an answer like it was pulled straight from Google, in other words unless this was pre-written, is this excuse of theirs just rubbish thought up, or was there information actually recorded about this around the time it took place (if there was no fore or early warning of it, or noted down very early, how could they say it's true with confidence).If so, that doesn't look good for them, though I like their "faith" stance on most questions, it's certainly difficult to beat haha.Oh and no I don't really try to convert people, I copped that a lot from various religious groups including christians on my door step and in the streets etc, I didn't like it, so I would expect they probably don't either.Ahh yes and as for this magic formula of salvation, even if I was of any kind of such faith, I would be frankly honest and say I really have no idea. Nobody can, everybody nearly iterates a completely different answer, even following somewhat the same faith and ideals, so that should say enough about it (these things obviously cannot be defined for now).

Edited October 22, 2007 by Chesso (see edit history)