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I send this in respect of all religious claims to honor and serve the God of All, and out of deep love for the Church of my Savior, Friend, and Beloved, Jesus Christ. May those growing in love of humankind and all true seekers of God, and those who love the Church dearly as the very Body of Christ to share love in this world, to all persons, be enlightened and encouraged through this writing. Amen.
I ordered a book. I was enthused to read it, based on its description from the publisher. I even got a copy for a dear friend, as a going-away present, for he had served with me on church staff. I read half the book. I quit reading it. I have tried to return to it, but have not been able. I am considering doing what I never do: throw a book in the trash.
I have discerned two reasons I find intolerable the book, even though the writer claims to be a Christian and is a pastor in a Christian communion. First, the writer so minimizes the claims of historic Christian faith, through relativism, that I cannot discern it deserves identification with that faith. If being a man means nothing, the word "man" means nothing. If we so relativize womanhood that being a woman loses its distinctiveness in contrast to being a man, consequently, the word "woman" means nothing.
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Meaning is contextual, and a particular meaning cannot mean anything we might want it to mean. Meaning does not fit us, we fit meaning. If the word "Christian" can mean anything loosely attached to the name Jesus Christ, the term "Christian" means nothing. Distinction, or particularization, is required for meaning, or there are only opinions.
Some professing Christians, in my estimation, need to decide either to be a Christian are a relative religionist. To present Christianity outside respect for the context of the historic stream of the Church is a false and, thus, unfaithful presentation of the Christian faith. Christianity--as well as each of the other world religions--is not a fashionable philosophy to fit us in our individual or collective preferences, for it makes absolute claims on thought and behavior. We might disagree on the thoughts and claims of the Christian faith, but there is no relative Christianity.
A second reason for my disinterest in the book mentioned above is I found it to lack depth. By depth, some speak of soul, heart, or spirit. George McDonald, in The Life God Blesses, writes, "My sense is that a large part of our Western world knows or cares little about this inner part that is called the soul, the spirit, or the heart." McDonald speaks of this as the "deeper, quiet place of spiritual geography." In biblical times this inner shrine was, as remains today, the site of "dialogue with heaven, events of repentance, praise, and worship, and the formation of intentions to life and knowledge...."
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