“God manifested himself to me as the infinite void; but it was not the abyss; it was the vault of heaven, with blue sky and wisps of white clouds. He was not some foreign God but the God of my fathers. He was loving and kind and he had personality. He said, ‘You suffer a little now in life, it is little compared with the great joys, the bliss that awaits you. Do you think I in my theodicy would allow you to suffer greatly in proportion to your reward?’ He made me aware, then, of the bliss that would come; it was infinite and sweet. He said, ‘I am the infinite. I will show you. Where I am, infinity is; where infinity is, there I am. Construct lines of reasoning by which to understand your experience in 1974. I will enter the field against their shifting nature. You think they are logical but they are not; they are infinitely creative… I thought a thought and then an infinite regression of theses and countertheses came into being. God said, ‘Here I am, here is infinity.’ I thought another explanation; again an infinite series of thoughts split off in a dialectical antithetical interaction. God said, ‘Here is infinity; here I am.’ I thought, then, an infinite number of explanations, in succession, that explained 2-3-74; each single one of them yielded up an infinite progression of flipflops, of thesis and antithesis, forever. Each time, God said ‘Here is infinity. Here, then, I am.’ I tried for an infinite number of times; each time and infinite regress was set off and each time God said, ‘Infinity. Hence I am here.’ Then he said, ‘Every thought leads to infinity, does it not? Find one that doesn’t.’ I tried forever. All led to an infinitude of regress, of the dialectic, of thesis, antithesis and new synthesis. Each time, God said ‘Here is infinity; here am I. Try again.’ I tried forever. Always it ended with God saying, ‘Infinity and myself, I am here.’… The architect of our world, to help us, came here as our servant, disguised, to toil for us. We have seen him many times but no [one] recognized him; maybe he is ugly in appearance, but with a good heart… One can see from this that that which we kick off to one side of the road, out of the way, which feels the toe of our boot—-that may well be our God, albeit unprotesting, only showing pain in his eyes, that old, old pain which he knows so well. I notice, though, that although we kick him off to one side in pain, we do let him toil for us; we accept that. We accept his work, his offerings, his help; but him we kick away. He could reveal himself, but he would then spoil our illusion of a beautiful god… Ugly like this, despised and teased and tormented and finally put to death, he returned shining and transfigured; our Savior, Jesus Christ… When He returned we saw Him as he really is—-that is, not by surface appearance. His radiance, his essence, like Light. The God of Light wears a humble and plain shell here (like a metamorphosis of some humble toiling beetle).”

I’d also recommend Shane Clairborne’s ‘The Irresistible Revolution’ and definitely chapters from Ted Dekker’s ‘The Slumber of Christianity’ concerning our desire for Heaven.

This may not fit for this project specifically but Augustine’s On the Catechising of the Uninstructed provides a good model for how to deal with those interested in Christianity. (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf103.iv.iii.html).
While we are on Augustine, his Treatise On the Creed would be useful as well.(http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf103.iv.vii.html)

I concur to Dostoyevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor but include the section before it – Ivan’s objections to Christianity and Alyosha’s response:
“No, I can’t admit it,” said Alyosha suddenly, with flashing eyes. “But, Ivan, you asked just now, is there a person in the whole world who has the right to forgive and can forgive? But there is a Being and He can forgive everything, all and for all, because He gave his innocent blood for all and everything. You have forgotten Him, and on Him is built the edifice, and it is to Him they cry aloud: ‘Thou art just, O Lord, for Thy ways are revealed!’ (p 278 in the Signet Classics Edition)

Other sections from the Brothers Karamazov that should be included are Father Paissy’s comments to Alyosha: “Remember always, young man…that science which has become a great power in the last century, has analyzed everything divine handed down to us in the holy books. After this cruel analysis the learned of this world have nothing left of all that was sacred. But they have only analyzed the parts and overlooked the whole, and indeed their blindness is marvelous. Yet the whole still stands steadfast before their eyes, and the gates of hall shall not prevail against it. Has it not lasted nineteen centuries? Is it not still a living, a moving power in the individual soul and in the masses of people? It is still strong and living even in the souls of atheists, who have destroyed everything! For even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it still follow the Christian ideal. And neither their subtlety nor the ardor of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old. When it has been attempted, the result has been only grotesque.” (p 193)

Also part of Dimitri’s comments to Alyosha: “Enough poetry. I want to tell you now about the insects to whom God gave ’sensual lust.’ To insects – sensual lust. I am that insect, Alyosha, and it is said of me especially. All we Karamazovs are such insects. And angel as you are, that insect lives in you, too, and will stir up a tempest in your blood. Tempests, because sensual lust is a tempest – worse than a tempest! Beauty! I can’t bear the thought that a man of lofty mind and heart begins with the ideal of the Madonna and ends with the ideal of Sodom. What’s still more awful is that a man with the ideal of Sodom in his soul does not renounce the ideal of the Madonna, and his heart may be on fire with that ideal, genuinely on fire, just as in his days of youth and innocence. Yes, man is broad, too broad. I’d have him narrower. The devil only knows what to make of it! What to the mind is shameful is beauty and nothing else to the heart. Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe me, that for the immense mass of mankind beauty is found in Sodom. Did you know that secret? The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.” (p. 120-121)

I like that idea but thought I would come back to iMonk’s comparision of what he is looking for – Catechism of the Catholic Church. With that in mind I would think the topics (Salvation, Scriptures, Trinity, etc) would need to be laid out and then the best representative writings from various time periods on that topic could be included.

An excerpt from Augustine’s – On the Trinity (would have to go back to find best chapter) would be an excellent early document on that topic. Then maybe one of Luther’s sermons on the Trinity might be a good one from the Reformation.

Just some thoughts but like the idea and have a lot of new reading ideas.

Thanks,
MikeB

She may be a fraud, but she had buckets of chutzpah and I like her style. And all the watered-down New Agey/Age of Aquarius stuff is small beer with the originals. Even Aleister Crowley, who was as big a chancer as anyone could hope to avoid (because I really think you’d be better off not meeting him) put the hard work in when learning his art; contrast his Book of Thoth with some of his latter-day disciples or followers in the ‘tradition’; you go from Hermeticism and a degree of scholarship to insipid platitudes and pap along the lines of “we’re all stardust”.

I like my heretics with at least the courage of their convictions

John Shelby Spong, on the other hand… *rolls eyes* He seems to think that if only Christ had had his (Spong’s) advantages, He would have made a better job of things. Still, never mind: twenty centuries have brought forth the bright light of Spong to tell us where we’re all getting it wrong!

I know Puritans get a bad rap, and sometimes they earn it, but this is a wonderful essay full of God’s grace calling for it’s readers to repent.

For the Jesus-went-to-England variation, I think that comes from the Urantia gospel. (Or is it the Oahspe Gospel? I always get those two confused!)

OM Shanti shanti shanti…

No point beating around the bush!

With the whopping great caveat that this only applies if you’re American, since the rest of the English-speaking world hasnever heard of him. And even within America, are there places that don’t know of him?