Christianity

[chongjasmine]

I had been a a christian since year 2002.
I was searching for God since I was a child and found Him in the christian God in year 2002.
Never regretted my path since.

Any other christian here?

[Diana]

So lovely that you have found the right path for you. It sometimes takes many many decades to find the teachings that correspond to what we need in our particular state of consciousness and evolution. Most people are looking for God you know... but many do not know that they are. You looked and you found. "Seek and thee shall find" is a promise and when we seek sincerely, we always find.

I myself am not a Christian and do not identify myself as such nor with any doctrine or dogma that calls itself Christian. However, I do believe that the Master Jesus was without doubt one of the greatest spiritual teachers that the world has ever known. But many Christian churches or Christian "leaders" do not follow his teachings, which has always made me sad (even angry at times) because some of his most wisest teachings are ignored and it is not surprising therefore that his name and teachings are dismissed by so many people.

What is useful when one is studying the teachings of Jesus (his real name was Jeshua actually - but this was a bit too Jewish sounding for the founding fathers of the Christian Church so they changed it) is to read only the words that are attributed to him. There are Bibles that are called "Red Letter Bibles" where his words are written in red, to stand out from the rest. It's very interesting to read his teachings in this way.

[HOLMES]

as a Christian,,
you could be looking for Christian decks.. there was one called the soul tiding truth cards. (tarot based but extra cards) ..
it is out of print but you could find it on ebay perhaps..
there is the Connolly tarot that is Christian based.. (they say waite himself was a Christian ,,I am not sure ).
course., any deck can be Christian based if you intend to work with the lord through it

[katrinka]

But many Christian churches or Christian "leaders" do not follow his teachings, which has always made me sad (even angry at times) because some of his most wisest teachings are ignored and it is not surprising therefore that his name and teachings are dismissed by so many people.

Yes, we've all seen how they "feed the poor" and "welcome the stranger".
It's like they're purposely doing the exact opposite of what their book tells them, they're twisting it into something evil they can use to abuse others.
It wasn't always like that. It's changed drastically with the rise of evangelicalism. There are still some good Christians out there, but it might take a lot of searching to find them.

I am not a Christian either, but I do agree that there are some good guidelines to be found in Christianity, if one bothers to investigate on one's own rather than just taking the word of some John Hagee/Joel Osteen type.

(they say waite himself was a Christian ,,I am not sure )

He was.
His work was an attempt to discover and/or to reconstruct a “Secret Tradition” that he believed was a deeper form of Christianity than that practiced in churches or taught in the Bible. He was acting on the theory that it had been passed down secretly, and had become dispersed among various occult/hermetic traditions. It's telling that Waite doesn't even look like a Christian to our modern eyes, when he was actually trying to go deeper.

You may not think of Johnny Cash when someone mentions Christianity either, but he did his best to "walk the walk". While he didn't "sell all that he hath and give the money to the poor", he did settle down, try to be a good man, and he visited prisons with the goal being simply to cheer up the convicts rather than to "compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves." (The 23rd chapter of Matthew is quite interesting, and never gets quoted by evangelicals.)

IOW, the people who are actually making the effort get buried under the noise from the megachurches, Pat Robertson, etc.

[Diana]

Yes, we've all seen how they "feed the poor" and "welcome the stranger".

Yes indeed. But I was not speaking so much of morality and ethics, but the actual spiritual teachings. Like what does he mean when he says for example "the kingdom of God is within you". The Christian churches have ignored this completely and told their followers that the kingdom of God is some place you get to when you die (if you're good enough of course). There are many other examples of this type. It's like they have picked and chosen what suits them.

Fortunately, in Europe the evangelist wave is very minimal. They exist but are very much on the sidelines and don't have much influence.

[devin]

I'm not a Christian, not really.

That being said, here's a little piece of poetry that I've been drawn to again and again recently. It's the final passage from Transfiguration by Edwin Muir and, man, it slays me every time.

But he will come again, it’s said, though not
Unwanted and unsummoned; for all things,
Beasts of the field, and woods, and rocks, and seas,
And all mankind from end to end of the earth
Will call him with one voice. In our own time,
Some say, or at a time when time is ripe.
Then he will come, Christ the uncrucified,
Christ the discrucified, his death undone,
His agony unmade, his cross dismantled—
Glad to be so—and the tormented wood
Will cure its hurt and grow into a tree
In a green springing corner of young Eden,
And Judas damned take his long journey backward
From darkness into light and be a child
Beside his mother’s knee, and the betrayal
Be quite undone and never more be done.

[chongjasmine]

I agree that some christians can be hard on people, but there are still many good christians around.

[katrinka]

Yes. The best ones are quiet by nature, because that's what Jesus taught: not to make a show of it. So we really don't hear much from them. It's the loud, pushy ones who are in the spotlight.

[Diana]

I agree that some christians can be hard on people, but there are still many good christians around.

Yes, there are good people in all faiths and some Christians have done remarkable things (Martin Luther King and Desmond Tutu to name just two well known ones, and there are countless others whose names are never known but who extend love and righteous judgment wherever they can.)

But still, it would be nice if Jesus's teachings were taken seriously by so many of the Christian leaders. It's not rocket science to understand the words "the kingdom of God is within you" (not difficult to understand but of course the realisation takes longer and can be arduous) or when Jesus admonishes to not pray in public to be seen of men but to go "into one's closet and pray in secret". And then you have stadiums of people praising their god in some kind of collective frenzy "babbling like pagans" (that's a Jesus quote, not me talking). This is completely in contradiction to the teachings of the Master Jesus. These two examples I give are not difficult to understand. They are not allegorical nor in parable as most of his teachings are whose spiritual import is more difficult to grasp. But some of the teachings are really as clear as clear can be as in the two examples.

it's hugely frustrating.

[katrinka]

It is.
The evangelicals became totally corrupt when they sought political clout. I can remember a time when they wouldn't even back a candidate who had been divorced. (I am not saying divorce is wrong, I certainly think that in many cases it's the only viable option. But Jesus forbade it in most circumstances. So while a professed Christian shouldn't judge anyone for being divorced, neither should they try to put them in positions of power.) Now there are people who have done much, MUCH worse being backed by the churches. Pastors are twisting themselves into pretzels trying to justify Trump's actions, and many others.

It all reminds me of the story where the devil took Jesus up on a mountain and showed him the cities, and said "Worship me and all these will be yours." LOL.

[Diana]

I am not saying divorce is wrong, I certainly think that in many cases it's the only viable option. But Jesus forbade it in most circumstances.

Ah well I would imagine he was being a champion of women here. Women were unable to initiate divorce and were at the mercy of the husband. I reckon when they got too old and decrepit for the man, no longer to produce offspring, they'd willingly divorce her for a younger more sexy woman. Just like many continue to do today.

The verse in Matthew you refer to harks back to Genesis and has a spiritual message deeper than just what is on the surface, but I reckon that we'll be getting on fragile territory if such a discussion continues. It's probably not the place on these boards for theological discussions.

It all reminds me of the story where the devil took Jesus up on a mountain and showed him the cities, and said "Worship me and all these will be yours." LOL.

Mountain of course being a metaphor. Just like the mountain of Moses and all the other mountains in the Bible which all refer to the same thing. (They can look for the mountain on which Noah's ark landed until pigs can fly... they'll never find it. But still, they spend money and time searching for something which was purely allegorical. The whole Bible is allegorical...)

[Joan Marie]

I think it's pretty safe to say every religion is at least a bit fraught.

I would really prefer to not engage in politics on this forum. There's plenty of other places on the internet for that, and plenty of other things for us to focus on here.

This sub-forum, Exploring the Spiritual Paths, is intended for discussing our journeys.

[QueenofWands]

I am a Christian. I have found the Christian imagery in Rider Waite very fascinating.

There's a facebook group I've recently joined called The Christian Witch and Craft and there's a full unit on the Christian symbolisms in Tarot you might enjoy. I've been working my way through the units there and learning a ton.