This book is aimed at those Christians who have begun to question the conventional understandings of Jesus, and Christianity, and even of what we mean by «God,» and have become discomforted by the dissonance between their own thinking and the church's stance. A critical thinker by inclination and education, Jack Bowers explored Celtic Christian spirituality for a decade. That taught him there are other ways to live out the Christian faith than what we have been told by Rome and Protestantism. Upon retirement in 1998, no longer professionally required to reflect conventional theology, his belief structure began to wander, seriously re-examining all he had taught and believed. Having heard whispered rumors in younger years of priests «losing their faith,» instead he felt he was not losing his theology but growing it. This volume leads you through the evolution of his beliefs to what he can speak out with confidence right now, understanding that as he continues to grow and experience this world, and hopefully get a little wiser, his beliefs will evolve yet farther. He invites you into this challenging spiritual pilgrimage to discover what you can confidently believe in 2016 AD.
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John E. Bowers. One Priest’s Wondering Beliefs
One Priest’s Wondering Beliefs
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: How in the world did I get here?
Chapter 1: Foundation Stones
Chapter 3: My Circle of Standing Stones
Chapter 4: Sin, for One Last Time
Chapter 5: Talking about the God
Chapter 6: What Think Ye of Jesus?
Chapter 7: Thoughts about the Institutional Church
Chapter 8: All Religion Is Metaphor
Chapter 9: Faith and Spirituality
Chapter 10: Four Other Doctrinal Matters
Chapter 11: Where I Net Out
Chapter 12: Failed Values
Chapter 13: Communitarianism
Bibliography
Отрывок из книги
Progressive Christianity: A Critical Review of Christian Doctrines
John E. Bowers
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Advent I—November 30, 2008
In the reading this morning the prophet pleads, “Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence, as when the melting fire burneth . . . .when thou didst terrible things . . . . Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness . . . .behold, thou art wroth; for we have sinned . . . we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags . . . .we are the clay, and thou art our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand. Be not wroth very sore, O YHWH, neither remember iniquity for ever: behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people” (Isa 64:1-9). He pleads with God. For why? What has he seen? What has this prophet heard?
