Religion and Spirituality

I know this is a contentious issue, but I wnat to talk about it anyway and I hope people can be respectful to the beliefs of others. 

It seems to me that although we in the UK are called a Christian country, we're not, most people don't attend church, many are nominally Christian, church for hatchings, matchings and despatchings, maybe xmas and easter too. Many will attend church to get their children into a high performing church school. Our main bank holidays focus on a Christian festival calendar, Easter, Pentecost, Xmas etc, but I wonder if we should add the holy days of other faiths, like EId, Diwali, the Solticies?

We have so many faiths in this country and many people who don't identify with any particular faith, but are broadly believers in something.

I'd like to see bishops removed from the House of Lords and the Church of England disestablished, in a multifath society I don't see what their place is in the giovernance of the country, I think you either have to have representatives of all faiths or none and seeing as many faiths don't have an episcopal system I don't see how it would work where the representatives come from and which community would they be representing? I think the same is true of the current situation and bishops, there are many Christian sects that do not recognise and episcopal system.  

Parents Reply Children
  • People changed their understanding in light of changing times, just as faith and understanding is shown to have evolved throughout the Bible. This can be confusing as the Bible is not in chronological order. 

    Christians have varying beliefs, individually and collectively within their denominations and wider Christianity.

    Within Anglican and Catholic Theology, ‘faith seeking understanding’  is a phrase used to explain the idea that theology and revelation is always evolving. God stays the same but people’s understanding develops and grows. So the theology of Scripture is not static. It is not a case of rewriting God’s profile, it’s more about a fuller understanding. 

    Other faiths may take the Bible literally, that God wrote the Bible without human input, but that was never the case in my tradition.

    Incidentally, some Christians substitute God for He, as I have done, as God is Spirit, without gender. 

    The first Christian communities, and the writing of the New Testament, changed ideas of how God revealed Godself in the Old Testament. 

    I am not arguing for a viewpoint here. This is simply a description. 

  • People changed.

    But God does not change surely - he has been about forever.

    Or do you mean we changed our interpritation of him? Did we effectively rewrite his profile to be more acceptable?

  • I don't know how someone can call themselves a believer in a kindly god and feel its ok to do some of the stuff I've experienced and heard about.

    I recall the god in the Old Testament being all wrath, brimstone and fire with humanity. Why did he change so much in the New Testament to be so soft?