Time to Talk about Trinity, Monotheism and Panentheism

Jesus Seminar scholars (Marcus Borg, Karen Armstrong, John Spong) talk about the panentheism beyond traditional monotheistic faith. We can love and cherish the concepts of trinity, atonement, substitutionary faith without taking them literally. God is too big for any one religion.

[@v4r23]

Thanks for articulating this so clearly what I have often thought but not had the words. Thanks for resharing it recently. Glad I watched. Hope this message gets more views and traction. Too many people are more enthusiastic about their dogma than their faith.

[@CalypsoCatnip]

An Episcopalian friend of mine shared this on facebook, and I'm very glad she did. I loved this message! Very refreshing to hear such positive messages from christian pastors! Blessings!

[@threestars2164]

REALIZE THE KRISHNA CONSCIOUSNESS WITHIN

[@tomy8339]

Wow. Were going there, are we? Well I'm not surprised. Once you reject the most basic of orthodox teachings of the Bible such as the forgiveness of sins by Jesus, then everything is fair game.

[@veronicacrawford5526]

Wonderful!!! I'm so happy to have found your video series. I'm enjoying it tremendously.

[@CCCSpringfield]

Veronica Crawford Thanks. Glad you found us

[@SherriEmilyAvery]

Amen! ❤

[@TheGuiltsOfUs]

Nietzsche reminds us that God is dead and this event casts a great shadow that will be seen for centuries to come. Even though what cast the shadow is gone people still see the 'shadow'. They take the values, perspectives, ideas, philosophies that were developed with this God as a foundation as granted, instead of advocating for their complete destruction. This video is a good example of this massive inconsistency. Mad ideas all around.

[@Stoffel0331]

I can see how this would make a lot of the more orthodox and spiritually certain a bit squeamish. It is unassailably well-reasoned. It also makes me uncomfortable, but that discomfort is my problem and just makes me want to watch the vid a few more times so I can REALLY challenge myself. The Buddha said, "I am but a finger pointing to the moon; don't confuse the finger for the moon." Are our diagrams of the Trinity and the virgin birth like the Buddha's finger? It's a really good question.

[@scottlutz2311]

Just came across this presentation this morning. Thanks so much for posting this. Amen!

[@CCCSpringfield]

Thanks, it is interesting how often this 10 year old sermon keeps popping up here and there. This was the sermon that got me banned from The Christian Left for being too “left”

[@saragunter]

I wanted to stand up and cheer at so many times during this video. Thank you for posting.

[@naomioz1]

I would like to support your initiative to bring intelligence, insight and illumination to the area of faith and belief.

[@CCCSpringfield]

Let's correspond. Write to me at [e-mail]

[@gerald726]

Loved it!! The world of religion is in dire need of this message.

[@LeeJamison100]

While I love this, and I see no part of the immediate theology with which I inherently disagree, I would be slower to reject traditional scripture entirely, rather than taking a close look at what is sociologically "religious" in our regard for it. I read an article from Thy Black Man magazine this morning that contrasted religion to relationship. Religion is invariably what humans say we must believe to shape how humans ought to be. Its constrictions on where our minds may go concerning the most important images in the world, be they God, or Trump, or the goodness of the Democratic Party are always arranged in such a way that they make the believer more malleable and controllable. Instead, there is something deeply, deeply insightful about the first Chapter of Genesis, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with how many "days" God took to create the world. It has to do with how a consciousness emerges and becomes aware step by step, and how a consciousness, to be most fully aware, must see itself reflected in the universe. So, the whole of that chapter, and many, many others, can be read in reflection. There must be a surface, a boundary condition between "me" and "The Other". Without it we cannot truly see ourselves. I'm going to borrow from the lesson I taught this morning in Sunday School to close- "I’ve often said to students that drawing is the most open of open-book tests. There is no fact in the objects one is seeking to draw that is truly hidden from the artist. But what one can see-and-report in the open book of the universe is heavily edited by the theoretical basis on which one carries out one’s observations. This virtual reality doesn’t only affect how people draw tables and faces. The physicist, Werner Heisenberg, recounted a discussion on aspiring to a purely evidence-based science of existence with Albert Einstein in which the older physicist stated the following- “Perhaps I did use such a philosophy earlier, perhaps I even wrote it, but it is nonsense all the same. ... It is the theory which decides what we can observe.” " Doctrine is only one kind out of many kinds of "theory", and the theory is never the truth itself. To be in relationship with God we must be ready to love God more than we love any theory of God.

[@michelerockne2897]

Beautiful and powerful. I'd really be interested to hear more. I would love to visit your church sometime. A bit of a roadtrip from Minneapolis, tho!

[@b.porterv7418]

I really like the analogy used in this lesson - the atom as a model is a great way to think about our experience with the divine. Thanks!

[@Cabbolf]

Well, that's a shame. I'm not a Christian myself but I do enjoy your sermons.

[@Brian-WinterSky]

Wonderful sermon! This video would be perfect for a group discussion for teens, young adults, or anyone wishing to move from childhood faith to adult faith (Hebrews 5:13-14)

[@MichaelMeridius]

At least this dude consistently lied about atheists, science, knowledge, teaching etc....

[@CCCSpringfield]

What??????

[@hwing86]

Thank you for this sermon. It is exactly what I needed.

[@CCCSpringfield]

Thank you Christian. A year and half ago this sermon got me kicked off the Christian Left but even without their endorsement thousands of people have seen it and, as the world turns, it seems that the Christian Left posts more and more of my videos in which Panentheism is assumed. One day we will emerge from the dark ages, or at least I need to believe that we will!

[@Bighousesix6]

I'm sorry you were booted from the Christian left. However I am confident the new Emerging Church will take off like a rocket. Thank you so much for the sermon.

[@Cathmoytura]

I think the best definition of God I’ve heard was put forward by, if I remember right, Richard Dawkins, an atheist. I’ll paraphrase-God is an intelligent and aware entity or being with the ability to generate a universe, but is not itself the product of a creation or evolution. Any entity or being that is the product of some creation or evolution is not God, no matter how powerful it may be. A big God would have no need or wish to be worshipped. A petty god wouldn’t deserve it.

[@momofdr]

Enjoying this week's sermon at 32,000ft about our beautiful country. Thank you!

[@RedFlagSaid]

"If love is our religion, then no one has to go to hell again" Plain enough for any man to understand. AND NO ONE NEEDS TO GO TO HELL! We can still have justice, we don't need conditional love that claims it's unconditional.

[@ETERNALCYCLES]

2:25 i would assume everything is GOD. i am a panenthest. I saw your title and want to help you out a bit. Jesus was taken out of context even 100 years after his death, he was a son of GOD and our brother, where is GOD ,just look at a stone and GOD is there. We are all children of GOD, we are all part of GOD. The kingdom of GOD is here, our sense organs cant see all of it. Eat this bread , this is the body of GOD, GOD is in the food we eat. GOD is the universe including all we can't see.

[@ruthanneschnell3364]

Excellent

[@CCCSpringfield]

That’s an old one… it got me banned from The Christian Left… I guess they weren’t all that “left.”

[@pfpbilltown7919]

Another resounding AMEN from me!

[@Cabbolf]

I don't understand why this got you removed.

[@CCCSpringfield]

Please do not be angry at The Christian Left. They are doing a good job in promoting social justice thinking among evangelicals. I wish that the page owners were also a great deal more theologically sophisticated but they are not and are not interested in becoming any more educated about theology. They are doing what they set out to do and the absolutely love my social justice sermons and they run screaming from the room when I tell them that Jesus was an inspired mortal person but not God.

[@larryriedinger8372]

Unity-Powered-by-Love is what is always offered to humanity. But what do our egos do? We institutionalized the wonder offered - into exclusivistic uniformity-powered-by-fear -- or the human ego's counterfeit of what God offered.

[@CCCSpringfield]

If you would like to be included on my Emerging Church mailing list, write to me at [e-mail] or go the the Face Book page The Emerging Church and "like" it.

[@captainmfitness6319]

I love this !

[@CCCSpringfield]

Well, this sermon got me removed as an administrator on The Christian Left site. Where do you go when you are too liberal for the left? Now we will really need your help to share this link around the web since I won't be able to post the link to the 51,000 who used to see it every week on Face Book. Help us any way you can to build subscribers, please!

[@CCCSpringfield]

There is not a topical index to our sermon offerings. I really should get someone to work on that shouldn't I? As to the issue of having been lied to..... yes, you have been and you have reason to be very angry.

[@CCCSpringfield]

One of the owners on the Christian Left is actually quite evangelical in his theology (he has no formal training in theology, he is just rather opinionated). He has warned me several times that he and others believe that Jesus is divine, died on the cross for our sins and he believes the Trinity is real and necessary to salvation. So, I knew he would hate this sermon.... I just didn't think I would get excommunicated! But, here we are, sitting on the curb again!

[@CCCSpringfield]

Mark, for reasons that I absolutely do not understand, seems to really hate me. I've held out an olive branch to him a couple of times but that only seems to make him more angry. On a recent posting a woman was telling Mark that he was a modern day prophet and apostle and he mentioned a couple of authors he thought were peers who were doing good work. Another minister said that I was a good guy and mark removed it. In his mind, he is an apostle, but I am not even a good guy?

[@larryriedinger8372]

I fear for you since you seem to be relying on your own "little box definition" of the word "God." Jesus said "I have sheep that are not of this [Israeli/Judaic] fold" in John 10:16. Paul said "I know WHOM I have believed, and am persuaded that He is - essentially - worthy of trust" in II Timothy 1:12. It's not what we believe that is essential - according to the Bible - but WHOM we know and WHO knows us, a la, Matthew 7:21-23. Your box of beliefs is much smaller than The Almighty God.

[@snuzebuster]

He lost me a little in the religions are like songs part. I think it is a much more crucial choice then that. Not all religions are equally good and that should be debated, peacefully of course. Other than that I think it was a spot on sermon on a reasonable religion/spirituality of Love. I'm an agnostic panentheist with some unorthodox Christian sympathies.

[@MuhammadAli-dv8gb]

There is no God but the One

[@CCCSpringfield]

Several people have told me that they really like him. I have read a couple of his God Article pieces but otherwise know nothing about him except that he is shockingly pompous in his exchanges with me.