Christian Existentialism

When I was nine years old
I asked my Dad, "Which baseball
team is on TV the most?"

This was in 1964.

My Dad, who happened to be a Yankee fan,
told me honestly, "The Yankees!"

So I began to follow the Yankees, and
my heart was broken when the St. Louis
Cardinals beat the Yanks in seven, in
the World Series.

In the first game I watched the New York
Yankees, the Yanks won, Ralph Terry pitched,
Elsen Howard hit double scoring two runs,
and Roger Maris hit a home run. It was in
Dodger Statium in L.A., the Angels played
there before getting a statium.

I was hooked.

I've been pretty obsessed with them ever since.

I was talking to my daughter as I was driving her to work, and she was telling me how her "fundamentalist" boyfriend was telling her how she wasn't brought up to read the scriptures each day and ect.,and I told her how our ancestors go back to the 17th Century in Prussia, the Luthern
Church, as teachers and ministers.

Her boyfriend is a son of a couple of missionaries
to the military on the Monterey Peninsula.

He acts one way in public and another way with her.

Liberal "existentialist" Christians are free from all this threat of an all mighty and terrible God
who would destroy you, but Jesus Christ is there "at his right hand" to stay our eternity in Hell, because He (Jesus) loves us (those who have accepted Him "Jesus", and He won't let His Dad "God-the Father", not to be confused with "God-the-Son", or "God-the-Spirit" of the Trinity, which is an invention of the Church during the Middle Ages, hurt us because of our faith.

Christian Existentialist believe in "Grace". We've
been chosen by God. The evidence is that we are
here right now and exist.

We need to be concerned about our actions, and
be responsible, chosing to accept Jesus as God.
Jesus was a great teacher and revolutionary, but
if we "chose" to accept him as are Lord and Savior,
that is our choice.

Accepting Jesus Christ, which is different from
Jesus of Nazareth, is an illusion, a romantic
version of Jesus of Nazareth, created by the early
Church, and built upon by the Middle Age Church
and today's Church.

Jesus Christ is faster than a speeding bullet,
more mighty than a locomotive, and can leap higher
than a tall building in a single bound.

Jesus Christ has become our "imaginary" friend,
who comforts us and takes care of us, though the
Holy Spirit, which could be called the "Spirt of
God", could be helpful as well.

A Christian Existentialist, is allowed by Grace
to exist, is an universalist, meaning that God
gives all people Grace and eternal life, good or
bad, which is relative to each person's experience.

We as Christians love God, because He has allowed
us to be here and use our freedom to be responsible
with what He has given us. Read the scriptures and
realize that these books and letters are what they
thought was reality. There testimonies. They used
their own experiences to write and come up with their own belief.

We need, as Christians, to come up with our own
"authentic" belief, not someone elses.

We need, each one of us, to use our own "experiences" to come up with our own relationship with the Almighty God, and Creator of the Universe, not let some one else tell us what to
believe and not to believe.

The day is cloudy today, but yesterday across Monterey County their was the strangest show going on. There was a rainbow, with another seen slightly
hovering around it in an orangish glow.

The lower level of clouds grayish swept seaward to the bay, but high above thousands of feet above the clouds just stayed there.

The rainbow, looking toward Fremont's Peak and the Diablo Mountains, kept getting brighter and brighter. Birds swept across the twin rainbows, over Target and Little Caesar's toward the Park.

Told me wife,"This looks like earthquake weather.

There was an earthquake near Oakland just last week. The weather is hot and wet in the Valley,
and cold and still on the Peninsula, with fog sweeping quickly across the tops of the malls, telephone wires and the trees.

We had a weekend of motorcycles and rodeo clowns,
driving their vehicles around, clogging up the roads to and from Hollister, Gilroy, Santa Cruz,
near the Watsonville beach, Monterey, and south
to Kings City, where the temperture gets to over
100 degrees.

G

I struggle with being a "liberal" Christian. The scriptures to me are the
"remains" of "testimonies" of those who lived hundreds of years ago, but
they are not the words of God, but of those struggling to understand God.
The New Testament "Christians", for a lack of a better description, took
for granted the Old Testament laws (traditions, myths, ect.) and characteristics of this "supposed" creator of the universe and believed that Jesus of Nazareth, teacher, reformer of the Jewish faith, and revolutionary, was/is deity.

This is great drama, but all "faith."

"Christ" is a concept, perfection, and "over-all-goodness" which we as
Christians attempt to strive for, but does this faith, or act of faith
give us eternal life. I say no.

Life is a "grace" of God. And as an existentialist, God is not here, or he/she would be evil. If that makes me a humanist or agnostic, so be it.

She God "is", as Paul Tillich would say, but he/she is not here. We are
here, and responsible for our actions. Build for those in need, make clothing for those in need, and grow food for those in need. Give according to their needs.

But above all, as a Christian, show God's love, which to me is the above
and the need for being useful, and having worth, encouraging others, and
enjoying what God has given to us with responsibility.